Project Bay Boat

  • Thread starter fishhuntcutwood
  • Start date
  • Replies 126
  • Views 12K
F

fishhuntcutwood

Guest
Well not really a project, as much as just getting it the way I like it. I bought it last July on my way out from WA to MI. I bought it from a guy in WI who took good care of it, and it was ready to fish. And fish it, I did! I fished it all summer long and fished it pretty much "as-is."

Well you have to make it your own, and that's what I've been doing. Gary's Muscle truck inspired me, so I thought I'd do something along those lines for my boat. Gary's is way more indepth and involved and calls for more skill, but well....hell, I dunno. Maybe someone will enjoy it.

Brian, I think you'll enjoy it. It's a saltwater boat and I condsider myself more aligned with the flats/bay guys than I do the bass boat and muskie boat crowd...even though that's what I fish for. Take my Power Pole for example, as far as I know, I'll be the first (maybe second, but unconfirmed) local on the lake to have one, whereas they're commonplace in your parts. In fact, I ordered it from a dealer in FL.

So here we go.....a little background-


It's a Ranger Sportsman 200. Also known as a 200C. Ranger is a bass boat company, and is the Cadilac of bass boats. They're awesome, and I've always wanted one. They make a "multi-species" hull, the 620. Multi-species refers to muskie and walleye fishing, which means big, scary water in colder weather where you find muskie and walleye; MN, WI, MI, etc.... So it's a deeper "V" than a bass boat, and has a wider, higher, drier ride. I wanted a 620 with a Yamaha.

In 2001 Ranger ventured into the saltwater arena, but didn't have a "big" saltwater hull. So they took their biggest, most capable hull, which was the 620, pulled out the carpeted, bass boat style interior, and dropped in a center console and called it a bay boat. And what they came up with was my boat. So I've got a muskie hull and a stand-up center console interior....perfect for big water like Lake St. Clair where I fish. The best of both worlds!

The boat came with everything I needed, but I wanted to upgrade-
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #2
It came with a cable driven trolling motor, and I wanted a wireless remote controlled trolling motor so I could control the boat from the bow or stern, as well as not have to balance on one foot in 3' chop to operate the trolling motor.

I'm a MinnKota guy, so I went from a Maxxum, to the Terrova. Brian, as you probably know, the Terrova is the freshwater version of the Riptide you see down there.

The Terrova has a sonar puck installed in it, to connect to my bow sonar/GPS, so it's all one unit.

And for that bow unit, I installed a Lowrance 27C. Color, GPS, Navionics map chips.

This is the intall, and completed version.
 

Attachments

  • P8110002.JPG
    P8110002.JPG
    153.4 KB · Views: 145
  • P8110003.JPG
    P8110003.JPG
    151.5 KB · Views: 144
  • P8120001.JPG
    P8120001.JPG
    160.3 KB · Views: 143
  • P8120002.JPG
    P8120002.JPG
    160.2 KB · Views: 144
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
That was last summer. Just an afternoon of upgrades to make the boat "fishable" for me.

Now it's been winter and cold and my beloved boat has been in the garage and it's time to make it shine. The previous (original and only) owner took awesome care of the motor, but only ever washed the boat. As such, the gel coat was a bit oxidzed. He stored it indoors, but three years of use, and no wax or polish, it'll oxidze. Time to get it off and make it shine!

Using a high speed polisher; not an orbital, but a 2400 rpm DeWalt, and some 3M rubbing compound, the shine is back.

Here's some "before" and "after." I think which is which is obvious....8)
 

Attachments

  • P2270032.JPG
    P2270032.JPG
    118.6 KB · Views: 142
  • P2270035.JPG
    P2270035.JPG
    117.6 KB · Views: 142
  • P2270036.JPG
    P2270036.JPG
    122.4 KB · Views: 139
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #4
That's all for now. I'm still getting the gel coat back where it belongs, but in the next month, I'll be installing a new Power Pole, a new KeelShield, VHF radio and minor motor upgrades. This thread may go nowhere, but I know there's some boat folks in here (Brian, Gigi....) that may enjoy it and watch my boat take shape and go from good to great!
 
Nice, Jeff. Keep on with this thread; I want to see where you take it for sure.

I'm not a big angler, but I love boats.
 
Boats, bikes, trucks, or hotrods... it's all cool.

Great thread mang! Keep goin'...

Who knows... maybe I'll make a trip out to MI and we'll rip that 200 outboard off of it, and toss in a Chevy 350! ;)

Gary
 
I may have to take my boat out again. I need to go pick up some more two cycle oil for it so it looks like a trip to Wally World is imminent. Maybe I'll take it out tomorrow and see if I can go farther up the river than I did last week.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #15
Here's another example of the oxidation coming off. Wow, I thought the boat looked decent before hand, but it was fairly well oxidized. The gel coat is still in good shape, and it's not chalking off or down to the little bit of "bass boat" metal flake that I have. Like I said, the original owner took great care of the motor, but pretty much only ever washed the boat. I don't think it's ever been polished or waxed. If he'd not kept it in a garage the whole time, it'd be a disaster. But that's probably why he never waxed it in the first place, is he didn't think it needed it because he kept it inside. Oh well. It's shining up well for me.

You can see the line on the top cap where I've made it back to. I'm going to have to polish the center console by hand because there's too much mounted on there for the wheel to fit and be effective. Guess a little elbow grease isn't a bad thing.

Power Pole should be here next week!!!

Got my KeelShield last week, but it's gotta be 70* to install it. Might be a few weeks there....:(
 

Attachments

  • P3170045.JPG
    P3170045.JPG
    125.1 KB · Views: 79
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #19
Sittin in my hotel in Grand Forks, getting ready to move down to Fargo tomorrow and figured I'd dump the camera and load some pics.

I got my Power Pole on Friday! I was going to put it on this weekend, but well...Mother Nature had other plans for me....I'll install it when I get home.

Basically, a Power Pole is a shallow water anchor. It's for boat control. If you want to stop your boat on a dime, you drop the Power Pole, if you want to pivot on a spot, you drop your PP and pivot with your trolling motor. I know Brian has seen them, and I know Gigi sees them on boats driving around down there. They're a FL thing, but they've got uses in the Great Lakes, especially LSC, which is very very shallow like Erie.

www.powerpole.com

But this is me and my love at first sight with my new toy!
 

Attachments

  • P3270008.JPG
    P3270008.JPG
    152.6 KB · Views: 54
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #22
haha, don't let your girl see you doing that!

She took the picture! She was rolling her eyes like I was an idiot, but she took the pic!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #25
Just more compounding. Finished up tonight with the DeWalt, now it's all the little stuff I have to do by hand.

But you can see the difference.
 

Attachments

  • P4070011.JPG
    P4070011.JPG
    161.6 KB · Views: 55
  • P4070010.JPG
    P4070010.JPG
    152 KB · Views: 55
  • P4070006.JPG
    P4070006.JPG
    145.4 KB · Views: 55
Back
Top