Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

New member here. After having bass boats off and on for most of my life, I decided to go for comfort this time. Bought a used 1996 Starcraft 180, and took it out twice last weekend. Really enjoyed the ride of the toon, and much easier on my back. I was also quite surprised at how easy it is to unload and load on the trailer!

I think I'm hooked!

Welcome to the club.
I'm sure you will enjoy your toon as much as we do.

guitarbob wrote:I think I'm hooked!

No problem, this is a "catch and release" site.

Welcome!

Toons are great to fish from, it's the best place to teach kids to fish, you can keep them separated and still get to them to help.

I sold the bass boat 5 years ago then bought the pontoon. Talked the wife into letting me get a used 17 ft tracker so I could fish back in the stumps but now the tracker sits in the driveway and we only use the pontoon. Welcome to tooning your gonna love it!

We got our first pontoon boat this year (had a 20ft center counsil) we love it. We go every weekend and the ride is great. Enjoy

guitarbob wrote:New member here. After having bass boats off and on for most of my life, I decided to go for comfort this time. Bought a used 1996 Starcraft 180, and took it out twice last weekend. Really enjoyed the ride of the toon, and much easier on my back. I was also quite surprised at how easy it is to unload and load on the trailer!

I think I'm hooked!

Guitarbob... first off, welcome to the club... great to have you on here...... I can't say I'm a convert since I never owned a boat til I bought our toon a couple of years ago but we did look at a couple of bass rigs as well as a pan fish boat... but we decided there was no way those boats could do what we wanted a boat to do.. and that was "go fishing" AND take several other couples out for cruises..... she aint fast, but she sure is comfortable.... It's interesting to me that you said how easy it is to unload and load on the trailer... The biggest fear I had was loading my boat... honestly never really felt comfortable with it til this year... took some advice from my 29 year old son and a bunch of the guys on this board... they all told me to slow down...go easy and don't get nervous just because there were other boaters waiting to load... great advice... it worked and i've had very little trouble when it comes to loading the boat this year...I'll assume by your name that you're a picker... what kind of guitar to you play. I have 2, one is a 35 to 40 year old Castilla... Put some new " lights" on it about a year ago and you wouldn't believe the rich sound coming out of that old box.... also have a gibson es135 semi hollow body... has more of a blues twang to it.... I like it but I think I should have gone with a strat or maybe an epiphone.... again, glad you joined...

I'm a bit of a guitar junky Roand. But, not as bad as I used to be. After owning over 120 guitars in my lifetime, I'm down to 4 for now. 1 Tele, 1 Strat, 1 Tacoma acoustic, and a 1952 Gibson lap steel, which I can't play, but it looks cool in my music room. That ES-135 is a great guitar. How old is it? I had an ES-137, which is pretty much the same guitar but with a stop tailpiece.

I play in a little blues band here in my town. We play about once or twice a month, and that's plenty for me. Too old for those late nights anymore. And, it's too tough to wake up at 5:00 and head to the lake when you don't get in until 3:00 the night before.

I'm extremely pleased at how easy my toon is to load. I go by myself a lot. So, there's no tight walking the trailer tongue, and climbing over the bow to get in and out of the boat. Just up the trailer ladder and easily step on board.

Welcome aboard!!! I'm too new to pontoons and converted over from a bass boat!!! Haven't looked back yet!!!

Enjoy it!!!

Welcome, same here, just sold my bass boat and bought a toon 3wks ago, loving it to say the least.

HandymanHerb wrote:Toons are great to fish from, it's the best place to teach kids to fish, you can keep them separated and still get to them to help.

Herb's right about that. My 5 yr old loves to go fishing on the toon and I feel very comfortable knowing he's within the pen when i'm tinkering with other things. They are great family boats. Welcome to the forum.