Can you sleep on your fishing boat and fish off your surf boat? Yes. Should you? No. Stick around to find out all the great things about the different types of boats.
Hi! Hi, I'm Sean from Lenscove Lessons in Boating. One thing is 100% true, and that is that you can pretty much do almost every different type of boating activity on any type of boat. So sometimes we see people literally fishing off of cruisers or sleeping in pontoon boats, and it's totally possible. But if you're in the boat market and you're new to boating, you should really think about what your primary activity is and find the right boat for that.
Once you've owned one or more boats and had boating experiences for years, this part of the process becomes much easier. So even though there is a ton of information, we are going to talk about the best features of each of the 15 types of different boats. These are the most popular boats on the market and we're going to at a very high level talk about why you might want to choose one particular boat over another. We've got tons of videos on Lenscove lessons and boating so if you enjoy this make sure you throttle that like button and jump on board by subscribing for more in the future. On today's video we're going to talk about aluminum fishing boats, bass boats, bay or flat boats, center consoles, ski and fish, bow riders, deck boats, high performance boats, pontoons, water sports or wake surf boats, cuddy cabins, mid cabin, cruisers, salon cruisers, fly bridges and trawlers.
Aluminum fishing boats are like the minivans and fishing boats. They do it all. You've got different styles which either have a side console or a dual console with a windshield and they tend to have higher sides and are what we would classify as multi-species fishing boats.
They're great for getting out on the water and just tossing a line, enjoying the day with friends and family. or really just escaping from reality. Bass boats tend to be fiberglass.
They are lower to the water and are designed primarily for bass fishing because they are easier to bend over to pick out by hand a large or smallmouth bass. They're typically high horsepower fast boats to get in tournaments or a day out on the water to the fishing hole quickly and they are really driven for one or two people to be out on the water fishing for bass all day long. A bay and a flats boat are most popular in saltwater environments. They are technically a center console but they have lower sides for getting into shallow water in the intercoastal bay areas and in the flats in some of the marshy areas and because of that they're not great in rough water. The big brother to bay flats boats are a center console and they are typically more offshore worthy.
They are fishing boats that can be used as day boats. but they have higher freeboard and are more comfortable when you get out into big water if you're in large lakes or out on the ocean. Fish and ski boat is the transition between a fishing boat and a day boat where you can do water sports. They can be either aluminum or fiberglass and they will have sections for relaxing like a typical bow rider.
They'll have other components such as trolling motors, live wells and fish finders. which make the ability to switch between family time and water sports and fishing more easy. Bowriders are probably the most popular choice for families getting out on the water when you want to just be able to do it all.
Whether you want to throw a line for fishing, ski or tube, or you want to cruise around the lake, the bowrider gives you more rough water handling capability and can be purchased from anywhere from 17 feet up to 40 feet. A deck boat is a larger, wider version of a bow rider which has more space on board and because of that is slightly heavier so the performance characteristics aren't quite the same as a bow rider but gives you that open usable feeling which is a little bit easier to get on and off of than a bow rider. A high performance boat typically is designed to have fun, go fast and be seen. They are great in rough water. They're meant to go from point A to point B, be loud, be fast, be seen, and look great.
A water sports boat or what we would call a wake surf wakeboard or water A water ski boat is purpose-built to take your friends or family out on the water for a day of water sports. Whether you love to wake surf, love to wakeboard, or you just want to pull the kids all day long with a tube, there is no better boat than a wake surf or water sport boat to take care of that, because it is typically an inboard or v-drive power. Pontoon boats are like living rooms on the water. They can take a ton of people with you.
They can... store all kinds of gear for your day on the water. They're great for transporting things back and forth to water-based cottages and truly are a great way to spend a day in relaxing comfort. As we transition to overnighting on a boat, the first stop is with a cuddy cabin.
Not many of these boats are made new anymore, but you still find them on the used boat market. And they are a great combination between an open cockpit day boat and a cuddy cabin with a bed. and possibly a porta potty or toilet so that you can stay overnight on it. From there we graduate up to a mid-cabin cruiser which is typically somewhere between 24 and 40 feet in length and has the ability to sleep two, four or six people and really is like a cottage on the water but it still has the performance characteristics of being able to get up on plane and enjoy the day getting from point a to point b and really cruising.
inland or ocean waterways. Up one step from that is a salon style boat which is tries to be more on one level has more open concept main living room and galley area which is all at the water line or above with a lower level of sleeping quarters. Next up is a flybridge and a flybridge is where you have the steering and control capability up on a flying bridge above the main cockpit or cabin and it's great for seeing around you and having good visibility and control with large areas for entertaining or living on board and this is a great offshore or big water boat to get out with particularly a couple or maybe even two. Big granddaddy of them all is a trawler or in some cases a yacht and a trawler is typically a displacement haul cruiser which is meant for slower travel more leisurely pace but more comfort stability and control particularly in large water and heavy seas as you can see there are a ton of choices when it comes to picking out what the right boat is for your family this is a high level overview and it really is just designed for you to have a basic knowledge of all the different boat types check out the description below for playlists of different specific boat types like pontoons, runabouts, bow riders, deck boats, cruisers, center consoles, and also in the description below you'll find a link to a one-on-one meeting with our team if you want to have a phone consultation so we can help you choose what's right for you.
Click this link here for a quick forum survey that asks you five or six questions about how you think you might use your boat and we'll fire you back an answer of a couple choices that we would recommend. Thank you for joining us on Lenscove Lessons in Boating for today's video. Remember to like this video and subscribe for more. Be safe, have fun, and we'll see you out on the water.