"Steve @ OutdoorFrontiers" wrote in
message ...
I have a hard enough time getting in and out of some of the
tight places I fish without pushing a fork in front of me.

***Good Lord, what kind of places are you fishing? I understand that
you're fishing river systems, but unless I have to get in between two tall
trees that are less than 8' 6" wide, I can't imagine anyplace I couldn't
get to in my boat that a conventional hull would. I fish thick weeds and
stumpfields that were a bi$%^ch to get through with my Cobra, yet the Cat
goes through with ease because of the shallow draft.

There are several prime back water lakes off the river where both side of
the boat are rubbing on the tulies and cat tails. In addition there are
several turns in some of those channels going in where you have to edge the
bow of the boat off the side and let it deflect you back into the channel.
This is not jsut one place, but many of them. Even those channels which are
relatively straight would be difficult to shoehorn that puickle fork down.
The wide "points" would be hanging up on all the brush even not with
standing its extra width. A few of those channels have such tight bends
that you have to jockey a 20' boat back and forth to get around them.


Having owned a
tunnel hull bass boat in the past I know about the phenomenal ride, and
the unbelievabley stable fishing attitude. That is inherent in the
design of a tunnel hull.

***There is a difference between a tunnel hull and a true catamaran hull.
A tunnel hull is essentially a monohull cut down the midline and a
connecting wing attached. A true catamaran's hull incorporates many more
design features to increase efficiency, stability and handling.


Actually, mine would probably have been more accurately described as a
trimaran as it had two tunnels the full length of the boat with a nearly
conventional racing pad on the middle hull. Sitting in the water it just
look like a conventional bass boat. The baker was the most stable boat I
have ever fished out, and it never skipped like a regular bass boat at any
speed including wide open and slamming the wheel over hard.

Its biggest draw back, and it would be an issue with your FastCat as well is
that while it drew less water at rest the "chines" sat deeper in the water.
Many of those back water access channels I mentioned before are dish shaped
"roughly" and/or too narrow to get through without forcing your boat chines
over the weeds and root balls on both sides. Because of the deeper chines
this take more engine output to force it through. The Baker was able to
make it through most of these because it was narrower than most 20' Bass
boats, but it was still tough. I had Jarod Bollardo (fishes a lot of
tourneys on the Delta) worried we wouldn't be able to get out of one such
channel when he came down to fish with me. When I go exploring new areas I
have not fished before I take my little tin boat which is even narrower.

I can't imagine forcing that pickle fork through a patch of heavy pencil
tulies to get a fish out or to get back behind the tulies to fish the back
side of an opening back in them. A V front helps to part them and actually
keeps them away from the bottom and back of the boat. The pickle fork would
take a number of them and force them back under the boat.

Seriously, a lot of the guys who fish here never go into those backwaters.
They spend almost all of their time flipping the main river and combatting
the wake boarders and water skiers. For those guys the Fast Cat might make
more sense. I'm not sure it would help much for skipping sand bars though.
I don't see how it would have much less displacement depth at WOT. Maybe a
little, but not much. I suppose it could run the engine much shallower
which could help a little, but when most of us ground out on a sandbar its
not from dragging the skeg. The boat goes solidly up on it. Actually I
have to back off a little on that statement. My tunnel hull did run enough
shallower on pad that guys running Tritons and Rangers could hang hard on
bars I could make it over. I still put it on a bar or three that I couldn't
get off of without help.

Don't get me wrong. I think its a good boat, but anybody who does not
recognize or chooses to ignore the limitation of their boat is fooling
themselves. I really like my BassCat for instance, but I readily recognize
that it is very heavy and much slower than comparable boats from other
manufacturers. I also clearly recognize that the factory has superior
customer support to any other manufacturer, and thats for a guy like me who
is just another customer. Not somebody who has "factory team" painted down
the side of his boat.


--
Bob La Londe
Fishing Arizona & The Colorado River
Fishing Forums & Contests
http://www.YumaBassMan.com



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