Lake Erie Fishing Boat

[eye-try]

I'd like to get input from the forum members on selecting a new/used Lake Erie fishing boat. I've owned several boats over my lifetime and they each had their advantages and disadvantages. The biggest was a 27 ft Sportcraft which was nice but it wasn't trailorable. I've got a 21 ft Walk around Cuddy now but it lacks the fishing space that I want. What I think would be ideal is a boat similar to a Thopson 240 HT but I'd like an inboard engine to free up the space at the back of the boat. So... does anyone know who make a boat like that and what other makes and models are good Lake Erie fishing boats?

Opinions are welcome.

 

[smokeonthewater]

Re: Lake Erie Fishing Boat

Many years ago my dad had a 23' john almand ford 351 i/o with a flying bridge and a small cuddy... we fished it on erie... we also got caught in the convergence of two nasty storms just off of pelee point (canada) and barely made it home with our lives.... It was only 43 miles across to huron (ohio) but that boat was too small for the weather and at the time I was too young to over rule the captain and spend the night in canada. We also started having fuel filter probs severly limiting power and with the best heading we could make we ended up 63 miles off course in lorain ohio at the copper kettle marina
We took several waves over the bow but with a closed bow and a self bailing deck the pumps kept up well.

We were not well prepared and not experienced enough and were very lucky.... just under 1 hour to get there and 8 hours fighting for our lives on the return trip

Point of all this blabber is that erie can be NASTY! and is not to be underestimated when choosing a boat.... Had we been in an opeen bow it is very possible we would have had a different ending to the story

Good luck

 

[eye-try]

Re: Lake Erie Fishing Boat

Thanks for the input, I've been in some sticky situations myself up there so I'm focusing on a closed bow boat. My WAC is nice for drift fishing but I really don't want to see what happens if you take a wave over the nose of it.