BY BRIAN BOOG
Hello everybody and welcome back to a brand new Small Waters. It’s been awhile. This month is going to be a little different. I hope everyone has been healthy and had a hawg catchin’ holiday season. It feels good to be back. Now, I just have to find some new places to fish and to write about. I took a few months off of writing Small Waters to go back and forth to Florida to help out my parents. There’s always stuff to do around their house. While I was there they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary – an incredible milestone!
The other reason for my break is that after 30 plus years of fishing out of my 11’ Coleman Crawdad, I upgraded to a bigger boat. I’ll talk about that more a little bit later.
During my break from Small Waters, on my days off from Busch Gardens and when I wasn’t in Florida, I did get out and fish. I didn’t travel far. I stayed close to home and hit my local spots. Harwood’s Mills, Diascund Reservoir, Waller Mill, Newport News Park and my frustrating favorite, Chickahominy Lake. I even hit the lower river out of Riverfront Park a couple of times. I’m not 100% ready for that yet. It’s just too confusing for me at the moment. I’ll get there some day. Tides and all…
I did have some good days and bad days out there. Notably a few 20- plus pound bags at Chickahominy Lake with my biggest bass of the last few months, a 7-1 on my trusty 9” M.S. Slammer wake bait. This is the biggest fish in the new boat so far. That was very cool.
Back to my new boat situation. In Massachusetts for the most part, fishing out of a 10-foot plastic boat wasn’t a problem or that big of a deal. It was totally manageable and with the shortage of parking, I could leave it in the back of my truck most of the time.
After moving to Virginia, I quickly realized that I could continue to fish out of the Coleman Crawdad, but it was a wee bit sketchy. Or sometimes, a lot bit sketchy. The bodies of water here in Virginia are just a lot bigger and have a lot more boat traffic. And a lot more wind. Anyone remember my story of almost sinking at Little Creek?
Virginia’s bodies of water are not ideal for a 10-foot plastic boat. I made do for many years. I loved fishing out of the Crawdad! I fiberglassed the bottom countless times and had zip-tape covering holes. I tricked it out as much as humanly possible. It was just time to upgrade to a bigger, and more importantly, a safer boat.
I made the trip to Bass Pro Shops in Hampton to take a look at my tin boat options. I knew I wanted to upgrade to an aluminum boat. There were quite a few to choose from.
After looking at the different models in the Tracker line, I decided to go with the Tracker Pro170 with a 9.9 Mercury 4-stroke – one level up from their entry level boat. I went with the 9.9 so I could still fish the lakes that cap it at 9.9, like Sandy River and Lake Meade, but still fish the electric only lakes that I love. It’s 6’ 8” longer than the Crawdad and about 3’ wider. It has some storage, a rod locker and most importantly, two seats! It’s the little things. Of course there’s things I would like to upgrade…Everything on it is just good enough to get out there and fish.
I wired up my Lowrances and installed a recessed foot controller unit. I did have a problem or two right out of the gate with the trim locking on and burning out the outboard in the middle of the night. The gas gauge also didn’t work. Bass Pro kept it for a month and fixed the problems.
After that it was smooth sailing until last Wednesday when my backup lithium battery exploded in one of the metal storage bays. It was just in the bay, not attached to anything. Luckily, I had just left Ed Allen’s on Chick Lake and was driving home when I saw the smoke pouring out of the back of the boat.
I avoided many disasters that afternoon. It could have been much worse and nobody got hurt. I just have to clean up the mess on aisle three. Here’s to an uneventful year and everybody being safe out on the water in 2026!
I’m man enough to admit this here: my biggest fear going into a bigger boat was the trailer. More specifically, backing up the trailer. I’ve somehow avoided backing up a trailer my entire life. When I worked for MLF BPT, Takahiro Omori, Tommy Biffle and many, many others asked me to back them in, I politely declined. Telling them it was due to insurance reasons or if anything happened, I didn’t want to be responsible. It was simply due to the fact that I was petrified of backing up a boat trailer.
If you feel the same way, don’t. It’s not that bad. It’s actually very easy once you get the concept. I just watched some YouTube videos and everything worked out. Matt Stefan had a great video on unloading and loading a boat on a trailer alone. It was a standout.
The first day I was putting my boat in at Chick Lake, Gavin was standing there watching me. I just did it and it was fine. Everything went smoothly. Putting the boat on the trailer is a little tougher especially in current on the river, but that’s another story for another day.
Upgrading to a bigger boat with any size outboard, trailer, foot controlled trolling motor and everything else it comes with has its learning curves.
For instance, I never thought about the angle that you fish at. You’re up much higher on a deck in the Tracker than I was in the Crawdad. Jerkbait fishing just became a whole lot easier. You just have to learn all the new steps in putting it in and taking it out of the water. Fishing with a hand held trolling motor for so many years became second nature. I fished with my knee most of the time. I’m sure soon enough, I’ll get as comfortable with this new set up as I was with the Crawdad. Don’t be afraid of any of it. It’ll all work out.
Pro angler Jared Lintner told me once “Fishing is the easy part, it’s all the other crap you have to deal with is the hard part.”
Be safe out there. See you next time. If there’s a small water that you’d like to see me write about Email: woodsandwatersmagazine@gmail.com
