In case you hadn’t heard, I’ve been known to fish pretty fast.
I hit a lot spots during a tournament day, sometimes only throwing a couple casts before pulling up the trolling motor and heading to the next spot.
With that, you’d probably think I’d want the fastest boat on the water so I could hit as many spots as possible, and to a point I do.
Honestly, though, I think speed is overrated. Let me explain.
With as much tackle as I keep in my boat, “fast” is relative. I mean, there are times when every compartment is so full I have to wear my raincoat at takeoff simply because I don’t have anywhere else to put it. And with that much weight, my boat really only hits 65-ish when it’s running wide open.
Now, 65 mph is still pretty fast out on the water, but compared to some guys’ boats that will go 80-plus-mph, it’s downright slow.
Of course, even if my boat could run 80 mph, there’s just not many times when I would get to do that, much less have a reason to. I’m not going that fast if I’m just hopping over to another point unless I really want to waste gas, because there are very few times when I’m racing anyone to a spot. And even then, when everyone is blasting off in the morning it gets a little rough. Personally, I’d rather arrive second knowing my trolling motor is still in my boat when I get to where I want to go.
What I do value is torque, which is why I run an Evinrude G2. The extra torque means I get on pad faster, which adds up when I’m making 40 or 50 of those 2-mile runs in a day. That’s where I make up my time, by getting from zero to 50 mph in a hurry.
If you need one more example of what I mean, look at John Cox. He’s been fishing out of an aluminum boat the last few years and certainly isn’t touching anywhere near 70 mph. Has his lack of speed impacted his fishing? If it has, we should all want to be impacted like that, considering he’s finished in the top 10 three of the past four seasons. Oh, and he also won a Forrest Wood Cup along the way.
Am I saying that you shouldn’t modify your boat to go 80 mph? No. If you like to go fast, go right ahead. After all, in tournament fishing, time is money. So any time spent behind the wheel is time not spent casting. So you have a “valid” reason to convince your wife you need that faster boat with the bigger motor.
I’m just saying for me, I don’t worry much about it. I don’t care if I arrive second, because I can fish fast enough to make the extra casts I need to and more than make up for the couple extra minutes it took running down the lake.
