Piscator

Does anyone have any experience with 1. New non-felt soles - seems like this is the way it will be in the future with Didymo, snails, and other hitchhikers. I've heard New Zealand has banned felt soles. 2. Korkers? I have a pair of their sandals and have been happy. They have a trick lacing system on their Guide model using SS cable and a tensioner.

You might not want to complete the boat dealer's laundry list of maintenance tasks, but you can use it for negotiation purposes. You can show it to the seller just the same as you might use a home inspection when buying a house. Thanks for the tip on Kinkaid. Right now I'm boatless and the waders have sprung a leak, so I've got to do something to get on the water! At least I've got my canoe!

If you google "how to buy a used boat", you'll find lots of links suggesting how to inspect a boat.

I moved to St Louis this year and sold my bass boat two weeks ago. I'm afraid I cannot refer you to anyone with whom I've had personal experience. I did most of my maintenance myself. I'm in the market for a boat just like you. I'm looking for a boat for the tailwaters of the White River and the smallmouth streams closer to home. I have several posts under "Best Fiberglass Jon Boat" that may interest you, but it looks like we're pointed in different directions. I think there are other posts on this forum concerning good boat mechanics or you might want to talk to members of the local fishing clubs. The commonest problems I've seen in outboards are 1.) damaged lower units from striking rocks or water getting into the lube and 2.) cylinder damage from overheating due to water pump problems. The first can usually be seen by looking closely at the lower unit. The second needs a compression test. Any of the above requires serious $$$ to fix.

The most important part of buying a used boat is assessing the condition and how it's equipped. Be absolutely sure to take a test drive and look for some rough water. Does it have what you want in a trolling motor, sonar, GPS? Does it come with extras such as life jackets, anchor, spare prop, tilt & trim, onboard charger - all that stuff can really add up if you have to buy it. A mechanic can check the motor for you - compression, water pump, lower unit, alternator. Check the lower unit and prop for damage. Go over the hull's underside for damage or spidery cracks (crazing). Has the boat been garaged or stored outside? If outside, was it under cover. Be sure to check all electrical circuits. Go over the trailer, too, looking for corrosion on the frame or wiring harness and lights. Factory submersible lights generally become a problem after a couple of years, but can be replaced by a last-forever LED system for a reasonable amount. Check the tires (and spare) for wear, bulges, or cracks. They can go bad without wearing out. Add some grease to the bearins and see if you get a water/grease mixture out - that shows lack of maintenance. Look for grease on the wheels (both sides) that shows a seal going bad. NADA is only a very rough guide and there are lots of choices in the type of boat you're looking at. Go slow, offer low, don't fall in love. The two best days in a boat owner's life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it.

You got it! I'm not in a hurry....I'm planning to keep this boat as long as I live in MO, so I'm taking my time. Check out www.carolinaskiffowners.com. You will be amazed at some of the prices reported for a J16 model. I don't want to report any pricing here that I don't know first hand, so you check it out and see if it raises your interest.

I attended the conclave this past weekend and had opportunity to view first hand several boats. I'm narrowing the field: Supreme: a quality boat, deservedly ranked highly by guides. I interviewed a guide who was running a 20 hp jet and said it ran as well as a prop. Shawnee: it appears this is the choice of budget-minded fishers and resorts. I saw several loaded to the point of having less than 6" of freeboard while fishing the White with 8 generators running...not a good idea. Off my list. JS: they were closed, but I looked through the fence at a couple of their boats. Curiously, one was like a Shawnee and the other was like a Supreme in terms of hardware and finish. The one like the Supreme was outfitted with a rod tray on each side and no storage boxes - open from casting deck to stern. They're online at www.jsboats.com, but don't give much information. JS promotes a closed cell honeycomb material they use in the hull instead of balsa or other filler. This is widely used in many boats for superior strength with low weight. Playcraft: I consider this equal to the Supreme and given Playcraft's efforts to penetrate this market, it may (or may not) be better priced. Off-the-cuff, first offer pricing I've received show the Playcraft for much less than a Supreme. Carolina Skiff: I met an owner who's boated the White for 25 years and is on his second CS. He traded up to a larger model. He reported it equal in fishing performance to any of the Ozark jons and believes it to have superior construction. They're produced with closed cell structural foam between the hull and the floor like a Boston Whaler. They can't be sunk. Fully customizable with your choice of decks, consoles, storage, etc. Check the www.carolinaskiffowners.com forum for my posts and comments from boat owners. The site is not affiliated with the manufacturer. My only concerns are impact resistance with a CS' light hull and abrasion resistance. The abrasion resistance is equal to any other fiberglass boat and the owner I interviewed said he's taken several bad impacts with no damage. My interest is having a package under 20' to store in my garage. Only problem is my nearest dealer is over 300 miles away. My brother in Florida, who really knows his boats, has agreed to look them over for me and get my questions answered. My list is down to Supreme, Playcraft, and Carolina Skiff

I don't know for sure. I think a hull can be found in stock for popular models. Some dealers offer pre-rigged boats - hull, decks, consoles, motor, and trailer. Ed's Marine sells them very cheap this way, but is reputed to charge a lot for any changes. You can find him on the web and find comments on www.carolinaskiffowner.com. Other dealers seem to stock the hulls and will order the components to rig any way you like. I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't get exactly what you want in a few weeks or a couple of months. You can get a JVX 17' 9" with a 78" beam with your choice of center, side, dual console or stick steering. Lots of accessory choices at www.carolinaskiff.com. I don't know the bottom width, but from the photos I'll bet it's at least 72". Might be pretty wide for the waters I'm wanting to fish. These boats started as Boston Whaler knock-offs designed for bays, backwaters, calm in-shore water, not necessarily for rivers.

Carolina Skiff update I have an interest in Carolina Skiff's fiberglass jon boats because they are available in a number of lengths under 20'. That will fit them in my garage. Some on this post seemed interested, too. You can find them on the web at http://www.carolinaskiff.com/. The construction is similar to Supreme and the others, but they have positive floatation (may even self-bail depending on load & trim), higher gunwales, and wider beam. They are intended to be customized - you choose a hull and then add what you want for front deck, rear deck, console style, etc. The price is right, too. A 16' hull is around $3000. It has a 64" beam, not sure how much narrower the bottom is. 330 lb, 1015 lb capacity, 3-6" draft. A painted trailer is about $1000. Unfortunately, the nearest dealers are over 300 miles away. This is a popular boat in the southeast. I talked with a dealer in Somerset, KY (Lake Cumberland) and will plan to visit for a demo this fall. If anyone else has an interest in seeing this boat or getting more information, contact me.

Playcraft River Skiff Review I met Bill Walters, who supervises production of this boat for Playcraft at Bagnell Dam below Lake of the Ozarks for a demonstration and ride. Overall, it's a quality boat and comparable to what I know of similar boats such as Supreme. There are quite a few details below for those who may be interested, but in short, if you want a fiberglass White River style jon boat, this one should be on your short list. HULL 20'6" long - Playcraft says boats over 20' do not have to meet regulations for positive floatation and pay certification fees. That means this boat may sink if swamped. My host admitted they have never tested it. Perhaps this is not a concern for a shallow water boat, but you should know. 42" bottom width - this hull easily rocks when standing, but I never felt in danger of falling in or tipping over the boat. In other words, initial stability was good. On my knees, reaching as though to land a fish, there was no problem. I would NOT feel comfortable standing and casting from the front deck, even with the extended deck option. Two anglers standing to cast could be an issue unless both had enough sense to keep their weight centered at all times. Thigh braces as used in drift boats like Hyde or Clackacraft might be helpful. Hull design - flat, smooth, normally angled front rake, small amount of rake in the rear with a shallow pocket offset to the port side. The pocket is intended to deliver cleaner water to the motor and the offset motor mounting position allows the driver to sit comfortably on the starboard side with his weight balanced by the motor mounted towards the port. The 15 HP 4 stroke Honda prop on the demo drove the hull onto plane easily in a couple of boat lengths or less. Top speed was surprisingly good and sufficient for my purposes. The boat turned well with very little sliding. I had in mind to run a 25 HP Merc 4 stroke jet, but Walter said he had no experience with jets on the River Skiff. He says the guides all run props on the White River, but will furnish a raised transom to mount a jet if I want one. I don't have experience on the White or North Fork, but my tailwater experience on the Cumberland and other rivers is a lot of dinged props. I've been thinking jet is best and will work better on tailwaters, the Current, Jacks Fork, Eleven Point, and upper Gasconade. Prop or jet? What do you think? Like any flat-bottomed boat the hull will pound and slap in choppy water. I wouldn't expect a dry ride in rough conditions. On the rivers it's designed to run, it should be fine. Freeboard is not excessive - I think it's OK, some people might want more. Draft with an estimated load of 800 lb (3 men, motor, fuel, and battery) was about 4" plus the lower unit. The hull construction was in a single mold - no smooth shiny top side. According to my host, there are 2 layers of hand laid cloth, multiple layers of chopped glass, and balsa fill. The balsa adds some floatation. The transom has 2 layers of 5/8" marine plywood. The sides have several pieces of glassed-in plywood that can be used to mount rod racks or other accessories on. Other mountings would need to be through-bolted. The trolling motor mount option is a glassed-in piece of plywood. The hull is equipped with a livewell box on the port side and a dry storage box to starboard. There is dry storage under the front casting deck. Aft, there is a bench seat with a pedestal mount to starboard and the gas tank below. Also in the aft bench is a battery box. Fuel line and battery cables for the motor exit through the top of the bench and are neatly secured through a vinyl boot similar to a car's shifter boot. This boat had a fly rod storage tray on the starboard and to port, two "bait trays" (small open storage bins), one forward and one aft. The live well was poorly designed. There were two holes in the bottom to let water in and out. Drawing 4" wouldn't have kept much O2 available to the fish. According to Playcraft, when the boat is under power, the movement will change the water, but I doubt it will make it a workable live well. A better design would be one hole in the bottom with a pump and a higher hole in the side as an overflow. I would have preferred dual rod holders and no live well or storage box. Bill Walters said the live well and storage box are needed to reinforce the sides, but thought dual rod trays might accomplish the same thing. He is willing to build one to my preferences and reinforce as needed. The two boxes create a bottle neck impeding moving fore and aft. I'd prefer something more open and the option to put coolers or boxes wherever convenient to me and shift the weight for trim purposes. There is a stainless hand rail running the length of the hull mounted on each side on the inside of the gunwale. Convenient, but could be a trap for fly lines. Fit and finish were very good. All hardware is either stainless or aluminum. There is a solid bow eye and on the transom there are two U-bolts for tie-downs. The transom has a stainless reinforcement plate for the motor clamp. The exterior graphics are attractive. A pipe is glassed into the floor where the bottom meets the side on the port. Wiring runs from the battery box to the front deck and this channel can be used for nav lights, trolling motor and whatever else you want to run. The trailer available for the boat is very solid and well built - it may even be over-kill. Welded from box tubes, not channels, it's solid and heavy with 16" wheels and a single axle. It has 4 bunk boards for the bottom and has side boards to make loading on rivers easier. It has a winch with a strap and custom stop. It has a tongue jack with swivel and wheel. Black painted finish and wired with nice lights. No spare tire. Overall highly functional shallow river fishing boat with a solid trailer.

Thanks, BRBF. The photos show a Shawnee boat, not a Supreme. It was represented to me as a finished boat and judging from the metal rails installed along the gunwales, it looks to me like the fiberglass work is as far as it's going.

I have not seen the Supreme boat yet, but I have seen aluminum boats with a similar indent - I call it a pocket - that is designed to get more clean water to a jet. Flat bottoms tend to trap streams of bubbles under the hull that mix with the water and can cause cavitation in the jet. The pocket pulls water up (and the stern down) and gets water to the jet that's more air-free. I don't know how much a pocket pulls the stern down - it may not be significant. Let me know any dealers you've found with a Playcraft River Skiff in stock. Pope, near Lake of the Ozarks, is listed as a dealer and displayed one at the St Louis boat show last winter, but I couldn't get anyone on the phone that appeared to know about the skiff model and they certainly don't have one in the yard. The one I saw at the show had excellent fit and finish, but I do not recall if it had a pocket for the jet. I didn't know enough at the time to look for it. The trailer it was on looked sturdy, too. I'm not so crazy about the hand rail atop the gunwale. Looks like it will tangle fly lines. I can do without a live well, too. If I keep a fish, I like to put it on ice.

Thank you all so much for your comments. Shawnee has a new owner, Rob Williams, who sent photos of a recently completed boat. Shawnee has no dealers, no brochure, and no web site. Shawnee is still making a single model with some options available. Williams wrote "This boat is a 48 inch wide, 20 foot long model. It has a walk-through live well, a dry storage in the front, and also a dry storage in the back. This boat also has a full length rod tray on the left side although it is hard to see in the picture. I checked will the trailer company and they can put a swivel tongue on the trailer. This boat and trailer is priced at $4500.00." Photos attached. I think it's time for me to head for Arkansas to see first hand, but I don't yet know where to find a Carolina Skiff. They haven't got a dealer with a boat in stock that's within a hundred miles. What I heard is Supreme is a good choice, the others may be worth considering. Thanks.

Who make the best fiberglass jon boat for fishing trout and smallmouth on rivers and tailwaters in Missouri and Arkansas? I recently moved to St Louis and have decided to sell my 16 x 52 jon/bass boat for a shallow water river runner. I don't think a McKenzie drift boat is needed - I want to motor up and drift back without requiring a shuttle. I've decided on fiberglass over aluminum and will equip with a Merc 25 HP jet (smallest factory equipped jet). The Ozark jon boat doesn't seem to have found many fans outside the area, although I don't see tailwaters on the White drainage as different from those in TN or KY where drift boats are more the rule. Why is that? I expect a jon would fish salmon and steelhead in Michigan rivers as well as the drift boats. My short list is 4 makes - Supreme, Shawnee, Playcraft, and Carolina Skiff. Are there others out there? Supreme - looks well built and available Shawnee - good reputation, but I'm gonnna have to drive to AR for a test ride. Playcraft - imitator or just as good? Carolina Skiff - the only one made short enough to get in my garage and no active dealers close by. A 17' or 18' would save me a monthly storage charge and I like the ability to customize the rigging. Why don't I see any Carolina Skiffs in the Ozarks? Would appreciate your informed comments.