I've been trying to get everything together for the last couple of weeks so I could buy a itty bitty boat for fishing all the small lakes around here.  Had planned on getting a little utility trailer and a bass hunter.  I had a bass hunter several years ago and loved it.  I had a pickup to throw it in back of which would have been nice but a trailer works.  Or so I thought until I tried to find a trailer hitch to fit a '73 mustang.  I've had this car for three years now and been slowly fixing it up and have been able to find everything I've needed for it thanks to the internet.  But there ain't a hitch out there to be found anywhere.  So I thought maybe put a hitch on our Liberty and let my wife drive the mustang to work.  I know she doesn't like to drive it but she works four miles away.  Come to find out the Liberty is HER car and she's not going to drive my car when she has a perfectly good car that she doesn't mind driving.  There's lots more I could go into about the hunt for the trailer hitch and who drives what but this is getting long enough already so I just hit the high spots.   

Anyway, I just got off the phone with a nice gentleman out in Ca. and am now the proud owner of a porta-bote.  Should be here in about three weeks.  The weather is supposed to stay cold until then so should have it in plenty of time before the crappie start spawning.  It wasn't really my first choice but hopefully I'll like it.  Haven't read a bad review on them yet.  For that matter I haven't read a mediocre one either.  All the reviewers seem to love them.  Guess I'll be finding out.  I'm still not sure sure how I'm going to tie it on my mustang but I'll find a way.  I've got a couple of ideas and hopefully one of them will work without too much trouble.

I've already got a new maxxum 40lb thrust and a new battery waiting.  I've got a new humminbird 727 to go on it.  Got all the odds and ends that I'll need that a I can think of.  Even bought lots of new tackle and a new rod and reel that I didn't need in the least.    So I should be ready to go as soon as it shows up.  Might have to buy an axe to bust a hole in the ice to get to the water, it will only be April after all  , but other than that I should be ready to go.  So here's to a return to fishing this year.

Sounds great!  yep, let's see some pics of it when you can.   

Did you get the 14 ft one??

I'm really curious to know how easy they are to assemble and how well they perform.
Would be perfect for the little pond near my house.

How much does one of those cost??  I didnt see it on their website.

Congrat's ka on new boat, and I see the profanity filter does not like your word anybetter then mine, it is a fish and the word starts with b ***

Any way a b*** hunter is a nice boat I have been looking at them.

I had a stalker II for a few years several years ago and loved it.  I had planned on getting another one but that didn't work out as mentioned above.  I had two main reasons for picking the bass hunter, it's been fixed, you can say bass again  , one is that you sit higher making it a little easier to cast.  The porta-bote looks like fishing out of a jon boat.  Not a big difference but every little bit can help.  The other was that I didn't see until a few days ago that you can get a bracket to bow mount a transom mount trolling motor on the porta-bote.  I like the trolling motor in front anyway and I will probably add a small gas motor next year so being able to put the trolling motor up front was a big deal.  What I did like about the porta-bote was no trailer and higher weight capacity.  It would have been rough parking even a small trailer here without it being in the way all the time and even though I mostly fish alone I do like to take people with me occasionally and I'm a pretty good sized boy so the extra hundred pounds in the porta-bote is an advantage.

I think I'll enjoy the porta-bote.  Any small boat should be good around here.  There's five or six lakes within ten miles of here that are between about 20-50 acres or so.  Most of them have almost no bank fishing.  I think only one of them allows gas motors at all and that's under ten hp.  Only a couple of them have any kind of a boat ramp and that's stretching the term.  Plus the fact that I'm out in the middle of nowhere with the two closest towns of any size, and I mean towns, not cities by any stretch, are a half hour away means I have access to places that no one ever fishes and can only be fished from a small boat.  Sounds like a formula for success to me. 

If none of those lakes work out expand that circle to twenty miles and there are dozens of similar lakes.  There's also one lake of a few hundred acres that's at about ten miles that does have a ramp but ten hp limit and is rated as a good bass and catfish lake in the state that no one ever fishes either.  I like the smaller waters if the fishing is good but this one isn't that big so it'll probably get some fishing time in too, especially when I can get a small gas motor since the lake is kinda long and skinny and would take some time to travel end to end with a trolling motor.  This lake is closely managed by the dnr where I don't think any of the smaller ones are so that could be a plus.  All the small ones may be full of stunted fish since they aren't fished.  Or could have plenty of big ones to keep the populations of little fish under control.  Will be finding out over the course of the summer.     

It's still supposed to be another two and a half or three weeks before it gets here.  I will post some pictures and stuff after I get a chance to take it  out a few times.  My wife's birthday is next month so maybe I won't have to hunt for a present for her.