Thread: I need advice for buying a fishing boat

@Lazyhunter I've had a boat since December. See my post on page 4.
Have since added a bimini and a Lowrance HDS7 colour fishfinder/GPS I got from marketplace for just $200 :-)
Have been really busy with house renos, work and some health issues but have already done about 30hrs in it. Very happy with it, apart from fuel use but knew it'd be fuel = fun type situation. It's handled a variety of conditions really well. Sometime might add an anchor winch but otherwise not planning any other changes.
Haven't skied behind it yet but wakes look 'ok'. Certainly not up to competition direct drive ski boat wakes I'm used to but still better than many outboards I've seen of similar size.

uk_exile - we have a boat with an anchor winch and to be honest I have been a bit disappointed with it. Sure it is nice being able to use a switch to raise and lower the anchor, but the issues I find are it is difficult to tell how much line you have let out - whether you have reached the bottom, and it lets the line out too slowly for the places we fish. Often where we are fishing/diving there is a reasonable current, and with the slow rate it winds out, the anchor drifts too quickly on its way down, and we have had trouble getting it on the bottom where we want it.

You can of course buy a counter to tell you how much line you have out, and I’ve considered this but it’s another $500 odd and I’m not convinced it will help when the main issue is it winds out too slowly.

Originally Posted by Sauer

uk_exile - we have a boat with an anchor winch and to be honest I have been a bit disappointed with it. Sure it is nice being able to use a switch to raise and lower the anchor, but the issues I find are it is difficult to tell how much line you have let out - whether you have reached the bottom, and it lets the line out too slowly for the places we fish. Often where we are fishing/diving there is a reasonable current, and with the slow rate it winds out, the anchor drifts too quickly on its way down, and we have had trouble getting it on the bottom where we want it.

You can of course buy a counter to tell you how much line you have out, and I’ve considered this but it’s another $500 odd and I’m not convinced it will help when the main issue is it winds out too slowly.

I put a 20cm length of coloured synthetic cord, about 3 mm dia, though the warp every 5 metres with a darning needle and keep an eye on it as it goes out. If chain, tie it on.

Does your winch not have a "free flow" option on the out going warp? If so maybe more weight in the anchor/chain?

Originally Posted by Sauer

uk_exile - we have a boat with an anchor winch and to be honest I have been a bit disappointed with it. Sure it is nice being able to use a switch to raise and lower the anchor, but the issues I find are it is difficult to tell how much line you have let out - whether you have reached the bottom, and it lets the line out too slowly for the places we fish. Often where we are fishing/diving there is a reasonable current, and with the slow rate it winds out, the anchor drifts too quickly on its way down, and we have had trouble getting it on the bottom where we want it.

You can of course buy a counter to tell you how much line you have out, and I’ve considered this but it’s another $500 odd and I’m not convinced it will help when the main issue is it winds out too slowly.

Sounds like you need to add a bit more chain or go up a bit in anchor weight

What I've done with multiple boats is tie different coloured pieces of rope or spraypainted marks every 10m or so.
Takes a couple trips to learn the colours or just count how many have gone out but makes it real easy to count out however many meters are out