SRC Fishing - Boat Size

[Anyfish]

I have a 12' boat with a 7.5 outboard. Is this to small for South Puget Sound (Olympia, Shelton area)?

[Dizane]

No. I have a similar sized boat and it works out fine.

[Roger Stephens]

Anyfish:

A 12 ft. boat will work at time on protected parts of Puget Sound. Hopefully you have a V or semi-V hull vs. flat bottom boat.

Safety would be a big concern with a boat that size if you got caught out when the wind started to blow. Having to cross open white-capping water to get back to a boat ramp is not a good situation in a 12 ft. boat. Being observant of weather forecasts and changing on the water wind conditions will help to minimize getting into some scary situations in that size boat.

Give the saltwater fisheries a try in your boat. If you enjoy it, you will probably shortly up grade to a larger boat(14-15 ft. min.) and bigger motor for safety and comfort.

Hope that you will enjoy this fisheries as much as I do.

Roger

[DeanHosh]

Even in the protected waters watch the tides. If the tides are moving opposite to the wind you can get chop. Actually pretty good chop, i.e. probably could get higher than your gunwales. And worse in a small boat are the standing waves. A bit akin to a washing machine agitation cycle.

Make sure you have a couple of bailng devices too. Small boats with small engines really suffer with an 1" or 2" of water in the bottom. Although it provides balast, problem is when you tilt over the water all moves too accentuating the tilt.

I fished in 14' smoker craft with a 15hp for years. V hull. When I started fishing the san juans more I moved up to a 17' and 135hp.

Hope this helps.

[BFK]

I don't think it is so much a matter of length as it is freeboard when you're discussing suitability of boats for what you're doing. There are 12 foot boats I wouldn't take out in a large lake, not to mention the salt.

Then there are 12-foot boats that can handle water a lot rougher than you're likely to go out in. as for instance, one day fishing out of PA, I came in because the waves, three and four footers mostly were too big for my 16-foot skiff. As I was leaving, a guy drove up to the ramp in a flatbed, dumped a 12-foot Lund on the deck, screwed on his motor, and then he took off, heading for Ediz Hook. I thought he was crazy, but he lived without apparent incident. A 12-foot boat with a lot of freeboard can handle really rough water...but it also depends upon the seamanship of the skipper.

BFK

[Jon Borcherding]

There is no definitive answer to your question. There are too many variables. I have been on the Straits in a 12' boat and on a glassy calm day it was no problem. The same boat has been too small for a day on the Sound when it was blowing. One factor that you should keep in mind is load. A 12' boat is extremely sensitive to the amount and placement of people and equipment. The other thing that I would mention is speed. The choppier it gets, the slower you go. It's difficult to imagine the number of boating accidents that have been caused by skippers trying to go too fast for the conditions. If you get very far from the launch, especially if you cross open water, it's important to have a "Plan B". This often means thinking of a spot or spots along the way where you could beach the boat and sit out the weather if it gets too rough.
Short answer: use your head and you'll be fine.:thumb:
JonB

[House]

I grew up on South Puget Sound fishing for Searun Cutthroat and silvers out of 8' rowboats with my grandfather. You can take little boats anywhere around South Sound, but like Roger Stephens and others have said, you MUST pay attention to the conditions. Even when I was a kid, I knew enough to carry a lifejacket and a bailing sponge. They're just must have equipment. Short term weather forecasting is accurate enough these days that if you pay attention (www.noaa.gov), you'll know when conditions are favorable, and when to stay home and practice your casting into the wind off the beach.
When in doubt, don't go out.
-House

[billylee]

Everything above is accurate. I developed a healthy fear of chop in the sound by doing somthing dumb. Well before I owned my own skiff (a 15.5 ft Mirrocraft with a 1984 25hp Evinrude) my wife and I rented a 14 foot skiff from Boston Harbor Marina. It had a 6hp that was just fine to push it around and I noted to her before we left that the sound is pretty cool, just like a really big lake. We ran across to hope island and trolled spinners for resident silvers and dropped a crab-pot. After a few hours we went back to pull the crab pot and lo, the tide as pulling a really fast current in that spot and the pot was gone. The wind had picked up just a bit too but it was time to go back so we went back.

Later I realized that the tide was going out from a big high to a negative low and the wind was going the other way. Not far into Bud Bay the chop got serious. We took on a bit of water before I figured out that the 14footer with the low freeboard better quarter the waves. God forbid too that a pleasure cruiser go by because the wake would have come over the transom and that would have been that.

My wife was praying and doing a bit of rocking. It took us probably 45 minutes to cross the bay and get into safer, quiet water north of Zangle cove. I never rented that boat again.

We did the same trip a while later in the 13 foot Smoker Craft that they rent. A lot more freeboard and a semi V hull. On the way back the chop wasn't the short 3 foot stuff that we saw in the earlier trip but maybe two feet just at the tide change. The Smoker Craft handled it just fine by throttling back. My wife was still pretty nervous but I could handle it fine.

My Mirrocraft is somewhere between that 14footer and the Smoker. Low freeboard in the stern but lots up front. Sharper V entry but flat in the back. It has probably about 100 lb of wooden deck installed as a flat casting platform and I toy with taking out the stern bits of it. I'm not little so just a bit of weight probably would make a difference and add a few inches in the back.

All that said I live by the NOAA reports and refuse to go out unless they say wind waves 1 foot or less. I stay close in to shore and prefer the protected bays and short runs. I'm taking my time to try the canal (only once so far) and won't be crossing it ever. I think in this case the lower freeboard helps me to promote a good healthy fear. I wanna see my kids grow up.

Smart = Safe no matter what size boat. If the weather stinks there's always the lowland lakes, maybe the rivers aren't blown, I always wanted to try Bass fishing, could go out and scout that tributary that I thought might be neat, find a new walk in spot on a good river..............

[CovingtonFly]

My cousin and I took a 14 footer out to Neah Bay. We hung out just outside of the break water and it was pretty calm, then we went around the point to the northern side of the breakwater. It was fine, but on the way back it got pretty hairy, with the waves coming in at all angles on the point. Once we got around the point the waves were astern of us and it was okay, but I remember looking ahead and seeing nothing but water, then a 20 foot boat would appear from behind a swell and then disappear again, that was kinda feaky. I would strongly recommend no one do what we did.

[D3Smartie]

i ran around for years in a flat bottomed 11' whaler. Took it from BI to Pt No Pt and even to humpy hollow one year. i know that boat and what it can take. as long as you know the limitations of your own boat, you should be fine.

[DeanHosh]

AnyFish,

Worsecase scenario is when you get swamped. Usually you will do that before a roll over. It is nice to know that your boat has positive floation when full of water. A lot of aluminum 12-14 boats only have some foam blocks under the seats. They claim positive floatation when swamped but add people and gear and it probably go down. Never tried it out personally so that is an estimate by me.

Whalers are very positive floatation even the smaller ones because they are basically injected foam hulls.

Just be able to bilge out water using the drain hole and a powerful enough motor. Carry your sponge and you can deal with some chop and spray. In the case of a a full swamping, you need to keep the engine running (dry) SO the water can move out.

I did see a guy in a 14" john crossng from Anacortes to the San Juans. Summer winds were increasing from the AM, 2', going to 3' because of wind, ebb was starting too. So here he was in FULL throttle into the wind, him and a kid in the back. Bow is way way up and catching wind. My guess is that is how you flip the boat. Launch and wind lift. You hear about it on the Columbia R.

So that was probably not good judgement. Or at least higher risk. Know the tide, the wind and how they will match up is key in any crossings in a small boat. You can do it in a kayak or a row boat, even a canoe if you knew what to do, ride the tidal currents etc. For instance cross to San juans at sun up on a slack tide, then when it starts to move ride diagonally with the current to finish the crossing. Of course you planned it that way by starting "up tide" of where you wanted to be when you cross over.

Get the picture now?

So in your case, a 10 or 15 hp engine might be the way to go. 15hp would move you fast on flat water and be able to get up on plane better when you got two people and a fair amount of gear. 7.5 seems more like a lake motor setup.

If you had a bang up day with a friend, moved the anchor in and out maybe a hald dozen times, caught some fish and wanted to make the home run, I would be draining the boat as I started. There would be enough to drain probably, and suprisingly. A 7.5 hp would have to be at full throttle to get up on plane and even then it might take awhile. 15hp would give you the extra thrust to get right away and drain out the water. Boat is now optimal for the trip home, most manuverable, fuel efficient, and fastest ride.

hope this helps,

Dean