Goodbye Boat

We recently said good-bye to a long standing fishing partner: our Basstracker boat.

There are two reasons people give for selling boats:

1. I’m just not using it enough.
2. I want to upgrade to a bigger boat.

Paradoxically, we had both reasons. First some background. The boat was generously given to us by Ann’s parents about 14 years ago, due to reason number one. I thought they would continue to use it while we had it, but that never happened. At the time everything in and on the boat worked perfectly, and it was the perfect size for the two of us. It was about 13 years old, but looked like new.

When we lived in Hannibal we used the boat on Mark Twain Lake, and it worked fine there, so long as you steered clear of the main channel when there was a breeze. When we moved to Columbia, we weren’t sure where to go. At first we feared the mighty Missouri in our little boat, so we stuck to Perche Creek. That was pretty fun, and in the spring time you could run up it a good ways. Eventually we mustered up the courage to nose the end of our boat out into the Missouri. The current quickly grabbed us and let us know that we weren’t on a creek anymore. But the little 25 h.p. Mercury would motor the boat upstream just fine, albeit not too quickly.

The last launch.

We had some fun excursions on the Missouri, especially when we made it to the islands. I a few years ago Henry and I camped on a island down one night, where we watched the trains pass by the bluffs on the other side of the river. The next morning when I woke up the boat was much closer to the tent then where I had left it the night before. A quick glance revealed the island had gotten much smaller in the night. I quickly broke camp as the island continued to dwindle in size. As we motored away, it was obvious that the island would be no more before long. I hadn’t fully taken into account how local weather has nothing to do with the level of the Missouri River.

But lately we had made little use of the boat. I think this is primarily because we are a social lot. We enjoy spending time with friends, and the boys’ friends’ parents are our friends as well. But the four of us fill the boat up on our own, so we could never bring anyone along our outings. Hence, the need for a bigger boat. It’s hard to spend money to upgrade something you only use twice a year, but maybe with a bigger boat we would use it more.

An enormous stray cat made himself comfortable on the boat at Stockton Lake.

So we sold the boat, and are casually shopping for a replacement. I check Craigslist everyday, maybe more than once sometimes. It might take a while to find a boat that meets our criteria. First, it needs to fit in the garage, which is 23 ½ feet long, only 6 foot 3 inches high at the center support beam, and has 8 foot wide doors. And we would like the boat to be able to handle eight people when called upon to do so. I’m thinking an 18 – 20 ft. semi-v John boat with about 75 h.p. and a break-away trailer tongue might work. There’s also a bunch of open bow fish and ski’s that might fit the bill, although I like being able to beach a boat on the Missouri River islands, and that’s probably not a good idea with a fiberglass boat with an inboard motor.

We’re not in a hurry to buy. Our remaining water-borne prey that we need to pursue for Cooking Wild recipes are crawfish and catfish. I think we’ll pursue both locally, probably at the farm, no boat required. I really don’t want to buy another boat yet anyway, because in August we’re set for our annual family get-together on Mark Twain, and without a boat in the garage, nothing will be stopping me from renting a big ol’ pontoon.