Family & Boats – Advice

For Context:

Mrs. Bucky and I recently added an addition to the family this Winter and plan to have more children. We enjoy a ton of time on the water with family, friends, etc and live about 2 miles from the river. I currently run a 17′ Tuffy with a 115hp Mercury that’s clearly a fishing boat. My wife’s father owns x2 competition level ski nautiques that are stern drive and solely for hardcore slalom skiing. One is an older one for flood and winter skiing, and a new one for summer levels (watching him in his late 60s show up younger punks in their 20s is cheap entertainment). The wife has suggested I swap the Tuffy for a larger fishing/family boat. She likes the layout of the Alumacraft Trophy in 18 & 19′ models, Lund Tyees, Lund Crossover, etc. For those of you who have had your wife “suggest” something, you know what I am talking about

Now for the questions:

How many of you run a fishing boat that doubles as a family fun boat? My concerns are that I like to keep my rods in the boat for storage and all my other fishing gear handy. I’m worried that having one “tool” for two applications could sacrifice on both ends. The positive angles to this are I’d end up with a brand new boat and only have one to take care of, insure, license, store, etc.

How many of you have purchased an additional boat for just family fun? I’ve found quite a few solid used 19 & 20′ Glastron, Larson, etc. cruisers that would cover the family angle for considerably reasonable prices. The cons to this are obviously having to maintain, store, license, etc another boat and “missing out” on a newer fishing boat for longer. The positives are that this may actually be cheaper than purchasing a $45k+ boat to serve two purposes and that the second boat would be better for water sports, visitors, etc. The idea of kids boarding a dual purpose boat stepping around transducers, kicker, etc. makes me cringe and this would avoid that altogether.

Mrs. Bucky seems to think that we should go with the first option of owning one new boat, and borrow her father’s boat whenever we really want to focus on water sports for a day. I hate borrowing stuff, much less one of the nautiques that’s stern driven and not allowed to touch sand or be tied to a dock.

What would you do?

When our kids were young up to teenagers, my fishing boat doubled as the family tube and ski boat. The inconvenience of taking a little bit of gear off on family weekends surely isn’t worth getting another dedicated play boat for. That said, I fished on my boat many more times a year than it took on the roll of family picnic boat.

I figure if you have e.g. enclosed/closable rod lockers that can help a lot.

How much would you anticipate combo-days with fishing and family fun mixed, vs 100% either? And what all is involved in “family fun” (and for that matter what sort of fishing) for you?

One boat. Would usually pull most gear out when taking the family with. Keep in mind you can be on the most amazing dish bite in the world and the kids,wife will most likely be looking for something else to do after catching a couple fish.

Matt Stegmeir wrote:

I figure if you have e.g. enclosed/closable rod lockers that can help a lot.

How much would you anticipate combo-days with fishing and family fun mixed, vs 100% either? And what all is involved in “family fun” (and for that matter what sort of fishing) for you?

Family fun will likely consist of: wakeboarding, skiing, tubing, pulling up to sandbars. I mainly fish for walleyes on the river. Once the water hits 60 degrees I’m almost exclusively trolling.

More often than not, I’d fish in the morning and then the afternoon would be family time giving me the option of either driving 2 miles home to swap boats, or 2 miles home to unload my gear and pick whoever else up.

I also forgot to mention that Winter storage isn’t an issue with family pole sheds and buildings less than a mile away on the “farm”.

To me – that feels like a great fit for a bigger fishable boat with a lot of rod and tackle storage. It doesn’t seem like a lot of limitations would be hit in either use, and the trip home wouldn’t really be needed. But if you have the space and desire a fleet can be nice too.

We have two boats, but may be more of do what I say not what I do. Nothing you don’t already know about additional costs and hassles of maintaining multiple.

We keep our glass family boat on a lift all season so it’s only the fishing boat comes out of storage on friday, back on sunday. It’s a pain but somewhat livable. If I had to do the switch over from morning to afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday I wouldn’t do it.

If you can get one boat that the family still really likes while being a fair fishing boat is optimum. ex. my mom really doesn’t want to put put around in a fishing boat. I won’t do a glastron that calls itself a fishing boat by simply slapping a trolling motor on the bow.

Most boats really suck at this compromise but there are a few with decent success. If we had to go to one boat the Ranger Reata slightly used would be on the short list. We’ve seen some nice reviews of that Lund crossover on the site too.

Only problem I see is the new one will want to be driving the boat before you know it.

i use an alumacraft competitor 175 Sport for both. I have a wife and 3 young boys. gets a little cramped with all of us in it but we have a floating mat that the kids play on all summer when the water is warm enough so that clears up room. Obviously if you went with a 19′ Trophy you would have more room. I keep my rods in the storage compartment when i take the family out and i always remove my tackle from the boat every time regardless so no bother there. Really the only thing i remove when i take the family out is sometimes the bow mounted trolling motor but that isn’t essential.

My vote would be 1 toy. Boats can be a pain to maintain and personally id rather only deal with one potential headache

Similar situation in our house, my wife wanted a pontoon or deck boat, I want a fishing boat, and we have compromised to look at a Crossover/SuperHawk/Trophy/Reata type for dual purposes. One of my best friends has a 1875 Crossover, it’s a great fishing platform and his family loves it for the recreation days. If you are in a 18’+ boat you should be able to store most if not all of your fishing equipment without having to juggle stuff in and out. The two boat switch over midday sounds like way too much of a hassle imo.

I sold my MX1825 to get a WX2060 to be able to carry more people for pleasure cruising and pulling tubes. But then I saw the Triton 206 Allure (which happened to be sitting right next to the WX at a boat show). I prefer the style and layout of the Triton better….

I guess I would think there would be days that you go fishing in the morning and maybe the kid comes with. But you end up just going right into water sports, then pick up the rest of the family and maybe fish and sports. I like to be able to do both just incase the patients or interest isn’t there. Getting a bigger boat or pontoon and rig it to do everything you want in 1 package with out hauling stuff in or out, can always swap some stuff in and out of the truck at the access. Good luck, this is a good problem to have!

We do it with 1 boat. Launch and fish in the morning. The rest show up around lunch, put the fishing gear away, load up the kids and toys and cruise/play in the afternoon. IMO, get 1 boat and use it.

How many days a year would you spend doing watersports?

We break out “the tube” a couple times a summer, that’s it.

The downriggers don’t even come off for that lol

I have 2 kids and a wife LOL. I have a Trophy and we use it to pull tubes and go fishing all the time. The kids like the rear flip up seats and mine has the front seating before they put the rod locker up front. Wife likes the bimi top for when its hot on sunny days.

Sounds like a trophy 205 is in your future with a 9.9 EFI!!!

martyb wrote:

I sold my MX1825 to get a WX2060 to be able to carry more people for pleasure cruising and pulling tubes. But then I saw the Triton 206 Allure (which happened to be sitting right next to the WX at a boat show). I prefer the style and layout of the Triton better….

X2 on the Allure series

Was in a similar spot for my purchase last fall when I was looking although my budget wasn’t going to allow me to go brand new. I ended up finding a used Allure 192 (discontinued in 2014 I believe and replaced by the 186&206) for a very reasonable price compared to other models I was looking at as well as being more versatile. The Allure came with 4 pedestal seats the ski pylon, jump seats, rod storage as well as nicely laid out storage areas in the bow storage under the jump seats and a big live well in the back. To me they fit the bill for what we were looking for better than what I had expected to find in the price range we were looking in and I’ve been very happy with our purchase.

For a dual purpose boat, give them a chance for a look at least.

I always had a fishing boat and made it work for tubing/skiing. Usually I was up early fishing and then play later. Take some gear, poles, etc out and go to the beach. That was maybe a dozen times a year. I would go with 1 boat if it was me.

Get one boat, the fishing boat that you need. You can still do the family/pleasure time with that. They will have just as much fun. You may need a spare prop of a slightly lower pitch if you want to water ski for the family time, but that is cheap.

Buckybadger, which model tuffy do you have?

This is why we bought the Reata last year. It is a phenomenal fishing platform and super comfortable family boat.

It’s literally the best money we have ever spent. It’s not a compromise for family or fishing.

39degrees wrote:

Buckybadger, which model tuffy do you have?

Osprey 1700C. I still can’t understand why Tuffy hasn’t gained a bigger market share. No, it’s not a Ranger…but it’s a nice dry heavy hill that rides smooth. Fit and finish hasn’t been an issue and the compartments are all truly dry unlike most on the market.

It’s perfect for fishing 2 people and has been rock solid. Clearly not a family boat though as it’s fairly shallow and not real big.

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The reason I ask is that i have fished out of a lot of tuffys and they have all been great, but I have never fished out of a 1700. I would say keep the 1700 for now until you really need to go bigger

Ranger 1880 angler does both really well. I don’t have to move any fishing gear to go tubing. Ski tow bar rests in a side locker until use. I use a 12 volt pump to inflate and deflate the tubes in the boat.
The ranger angler and the reatta are great family boats.