Thread: New old boat

I'm very happy with my rowboat Flier for fishing trips over water up to two miles out and back, but after that it gets to be a too long day for me. Since I'm on the Connecticut river I've got a 40 mile stretch between dams, most of which I've never fished.

I like simple, low maintenance, and also traditional looking boats, and so have been looking on Craigslist for something light that I can easily tow behind a ten year old Subaru Outback, and I think I just found the perfect boat (for me). It's a 1958 Crestliner Super Seaman 14'. It's in near perfect shape -- just needs the seats replaced ad a little shine to come up as a classic fishing skiff.

I already had an '86 8hp Mariner 2-stroke, that I bought new 35 years ago, and had probably put 50 hours on total. It's just been stored mostly. Seems like an economical lightweight combo that I can fish for crappies from here on the CT river, and tow and launch with ease. I'm looking forward to prettying up the boat.

I did take her out the other day for a test spin on a local pond after doing a quick clean of the carb, rebuilding the water pump, and changing the lower unit oil. Went well for the first ten minutes on a local pond, but the carb idle circuit clogged up. Making lemonade from lemons, I just fished where she'd stopped, and caught two crappies, 9" and 10", half a dozen nuisance dink bass, and one 14" bass that was all mouth and gut. Looked like it should have been a 17" but decided to stay small.

I played with the choke partially out and was able to make it back to the launch site. I've since done a thorough cleaning of the carb, and polishing the float valve seat, which I think will clear up the teething problems.

Looking forward to gettin out after some crappies in my new tin bucket -- maybe even tomorrow!

The only way I could get that seat out was to saw it off at both ends. It was in poor shape anyway, and I plan to replace all the thwarts anyway.