New boat for new guy

[icondonj]

Hi there. Joe from Snohomish Washington here. Some good info and really nice boats on this site. I recently pulled the trigger and upgraded from a 17' Crestliner to a custom Raider center console so I'd figure I'd post some photos. The new boat is 23' with the bracket and has a 8.5' beam and based on a new hull design for Raider this year (Prosport 2100). Went with a 150 e-tec and a 70 gl gas tank. I primarily fly-fish the salt, and I wanted a boat with offshore capabilities but could also support a bow mounted trolling motor to keep me close to structure as I do a lot of fly fishing for ling cod and rockfish (after a lot of research I decided against a TR-1 on a kicker). I had the boat out at Neah bay this past week and was very happy with the performance. The 36 volt Riptide 60" trolling motor was able to move me around fine and also keep me anchored very well while fishing inshore, and I had no problems running offshore in chop. Managed to find some coho out at swiftsure. Something I've been wanting to do for years, but didn't want to try with my previous boat. For electronics, I've got a Lowrance HDS-9 gen 2 touch, g4 radar, and the Link 8 radio (nice seeing the AIS targets on the chartplotter). The one thing I'll add will be a kicker (without a TR-1). It was a bit of a PITA getting the perfect speed while trolling off the main motor when bucktailing flies for coho. Seems I was either going just a bit too slow or a bit too fast. I never had that issue with my old boat. It would be nice to have a kicker for redundancy as well.

Cheers. Joe

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[welder]

Great 1st post and a very nice ride.
Now we need pictures of fish on her.

[Chaps]

Ditto, great first post and very nice rig. I love bucktailing for silvers up there, surprised to see that happening already, thought it was more of an august show?

[icondonj]

Chaps -

Traditionally, I've had good luck for silvers "inside" starting mid-July at whistle buoy, but I suspect one can at certain tides do well sooner as I've seen coho in the straits in early July and I know coho are hooked in decent numbers in early June on the CAN side of swiftsure.

BTW - On a side note, I got married (...and later divorced) at the Hope Island Inn. I've spent some quality time in the La Conner area. Beautiful area.

[pjay9]

Welcome fellow RAIDERite! Good looking ride...there should be plenty of room for a kicker on the transom..my new 9.9 fit well. Again Welcome!

[icondonj]

Fellow Brother Raider! I'm thoroughly enjoying the new boat. No worries about adding a kicker.

[capesteve]

Nice boat!

[spoiled one]

Nice boat! I agree, we need to see some blood on the deck! You are spoiled with those nice ramps!

[Napa Mike]

Cool boat! congrats. Fly fishing for ling and rock cod sounds interesting and fun --how do you do that?

Cheers,
Mike

[icondonj]

RE lingcod - 8-9" yak hair clousers, weighted lines, 9wt rods. The big flies can be very effective - more so than gear at times. Rockfish are a blast when actively feeding on krill at the surface. I've had some epic days getting them stripping poppers but usually it's a sinking line game.

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[goatram]

Welcome
A PNW Boat with out a Fort. Dave you see this? Not all that live here are like me. There are a few crazy ones around here.