Thread: Cane Pole's Boat of the Month Contest - APRIL is sponsored by Strike King

Boat of the Month contest. AND Boat of the Year.

Post pictures of your boat with as many details as you care to include. And Cane Pole (and company) will select a winner. We will do this every month (unless the gewber forgets), and then at the end of the year we will select a "Boat Of The Year".

So, you can submit and resubmit your boat each month you don't win, and add additional details that might help it win the next month over the course of the year. The more details, and pics, and cool things you document, the better the chances are to get selected. The monthly winners will receive a prize pack, as will the "Boat of the Year".

*This includes kayaks and canoes. Whatever you float in...

This months prize is sponsored by Strike King....here are the prize pack details.....thank you Strike King for your support.



SIX packs of Sausage Heads


SIX 25 packs of Mr. Crappie Jig Heads.


Two packs of Krappie Kickers


Two packs of Scizzor Shads


And Twelve packs of plastics including: Jokers, Slab Slangers, Shad Poles, Slabalicious and Shad Pole Curly Tails.

Holy Cow Batman, this is one heck of a prize pack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Colors and specific styles WILL vary.


Disclaimer: Prizes and rules subject to change without notice.

Last edited by Slab; 01-04-2017 at 07:37 AM.

Member BS Pro-Staff and Billbob Pro-Staff
Proud Member of Team Geezer... authorized by: billbob and "G"

Ok guys I know this is a long post with several pics but bear with me. I have told a few of you over the past few months that I was restoring an old Ranger boat to be my “New” crappie rig, so I thought I would share my old boat’s story and some pics of the process. I bought the boat which is a 1974 model TR-10 Ranger about 10 years ago. Just for my own curiosity I contacted Ranger and tried to find out as much as I could about the boat. According to the folks at the Ranger Boats factory, back in the day that this boat was manufactured you could basically tell them where you wanted everything and they would put it there. (Much different than the way most new boats are ordered today) I was told it had “Factory Modifications” done as they were building it. They said this was evident since the letter “F” is at the end of the serial number and the livewell and storage configurations are arranged differently than the regular TR-10.

How this whole boat transformation came to be is a story all its own. I have bass fished all my life and fish several tournaments each year but I have always loved crappie fishing. Recently, my family and I moved, and now live on a good crappie lake and this just made me delve into it even more. I really became caught up in it after fun fishing several times with a friend of mine who is a crappie guide, along with reading posts and looking at the pics on Crapppie.com. Since I already had the boat and my 6 year old daughter adamantly didn’t want me to sell it, I have been working to make it into something she and I can use to catch “Crappie”.

Ok, as far as what has been done to the boat. Since I have owned it I have only used it on a small limited horsepower lake so I had a 9.9hp engine on it. Now that we live on a much larger lake I replaced the 9.9 with a 50hp. Mercury. When I bought the boat it was partially restored which put me in a good position to finish the job. I have had the gunnels re-glassed in red to get rid of the 10,000 holes that had been drilled in it over the past 40+ years. I only had to buff and polish the hull. I tried to get original “Ranger” plastic emblems for the sides but due to its age, the Ranger factory didn’t have any. They did however, send me oldest emblems they had so I used them on the sides and kept and used the one original emblem on the console. I made a deck extension for the front which will allow me to use the underneath for storage. The boat did not have any seats in it when I bought it and it really didn’t matter before, but now I am in the process of adding seats over the livewell lids. The fishing seats I had from a previous boat. I also installed transducers and Structure Scan just like my bass boat so now I can switch my Lowrance units from boat to boat and have Structure Scan, Down Imaging etc. The rod holders are a combination of Cumberland Crappie 360’s (front) and Hill’s (rear). I have arranged the rod holder bases so I can Spider Rig from the front, Brushpile fish off either side with rods in the front and back or Longline with 8 rods in the front and 4 in the back. The boat is really too narrow to fish 2 people out the front so I just worked around that issue and set it up so we can fish out of the front and the back. The three white transport holders I made out of BassPro Shops 4 position rod racks, 3/8” all thread and pipe hangers for the bases. I currently have a MotorGuide 46lb. foot control trolling motor which will do fine for most of my fishing, although I am considering a Quick Release Trolling Motor Mount so I could possibly use a remote controlled motor for Longlining in the future.

I know she isn’t a new ride but one I am proud of nonetheless. My daughter and I have had fun working on it and she can’t wait until we can go try her out.

I have attached several pics, some of which are from the previous owner as he began the restoration process, some as I was working on her and some of how she looks now that she’s finished. I also put in a few old advertisements that I thought would make you appreciate just how much fishing boats have changed over the past 40+ years. I hope you enjoy!

Thanks for letting me share and tight lines to you all,
Richard