I’d like to be able to venture out a little. End of the jetties in Port A but really not much more than that. Need to get some experience navigating saltwater before going deeper. I grew up on Bayou Bartholemew in Sterlington, LA so most of my experience has been bayous up north bass fishing and Ouachita River catfishing. So I’m a complete novice to saltwater boating other than the few charter trips I’ve been on. But man I loved it. The wife is on board with it and we will eventually get a vacation home in Port A once the kiddos are gone to college in a couple years.

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Posted by TxWadingFool

Middle Coast

Member since Sep 2014

4399 posts

Posted on 10/24/23 at 9:07 pm to GPayne

If your fishing in Port A area I'd suggest a Cat hull. Lots of shallow grass flats around there and you'll be you'll be doing a lot of putting around in a v-hull trying to get to deeper water to jump up. Plenty of pre-owned locally made boats that are made for the area, Shallow Sport, TransCat, Shoalwater, Majek, and Haynie. IMO the quality is in that order, a big issue with the back half of that list would be with the quality of the rigging, you'll have to get down under the console and in the bilge area to see what the wiring looks like. Lots of pro staff guide boats that are a year old come up for sale this time of year, it's a 50/50 crap shoot on those, the good thing is they will have warranties on the engines. That is my area down there, let me know if I can help out further when you get closer to pulling the trigger.

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Posted by Mister Bigfish

Member since Oct 2018

942 posts

Posted on 10/24/23 at 11:04 pm to GPayne

Sounds like just about any 22 ft bay will suit your needs. Start looking online and YouTube and you will find pictures and videos of the layouts of boats so you can scout the layouts and narrow your search. Once you have it narrowed down I would join the owners groups on FB for that brand of boat. They will post them for sale there frequently in addition to other tidbits of info you will learn about that brand and model.

Bluewave and Pathfinder as mentioned are both popular brands. Pathfinder is a little more expensive. The 22 Bluewave’s have a little more freeboard with higher gunnels and the pathfinders have lower gunnels. But there are literally dozens of brands you are going to want to look at.

Here are a few mass produced brands to get you started:

Sea hunt - heavy, deep
Blazer bay - light, less freeboard
Frontier - medium
Blackjack - probably above budget
Ranger - heavy,
Key West - medium
Sportsman - depends on model
Skeeter - medium
Robalo - heavy, wide

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