FISHING

Cat Fishing with Reaper!

Introductions are in order. The header picture, and the picture below, are of Reaper, our custom fishing pontoon.
Custom? She started life as a 28 foot pontoon that had seen better days. Now, she has 18 foot pontoons and a 14 foot deck. The sole purpose of this pontoon, is to catch cats. Preferably big cats, but ANY cat is acceptable. This pontoon was designed to be able to run bank lines at night. It is short and maneuverable, and yet, there is plenty of room for two or three people to stretch out, and or walk around. My wife and I are old enough now, that sitting in one spot in our previous 16 foot Tracker all day was no longer enjoyable.

Reaper is small enough that she handles the smaller rivers like the Skunk very well, and has even been quite a long ways up the North skunk on occasion. Right now she is pretty dirty, because she was on the mighty Mississippi last weekend. Skunk, Iowa, DesMoines and the Mississippi are the usual destinations, but on occasion, she can travel further on the custom trailer. The trailer rests against the bottom of the deck, not under the pontoons.

We have a pair of led lights on the front. They are rugged armored led's, and when they turn on they LIGHT up the entire river. The live well in front has both a water pump and a 12v aerator in it to keep bait alive. Whoever is checking the bank lines can sit on the top of it, pull the bank line up to check it and they have the bait right beside them to re bait the lines as we go. Two 3 mil candlepower spotlights to help us locate the bank lines in the darkness.

12 gallon tank on the right. It has two deep cycle batteries in the compartment to the left in battery boxes, the life vests etc, and the tackle boxes. The smaller hole near the top of the rear deck has a 500 watt inverter behind it, to charge cell phones, plug in a laptop etc.. It also has a maintenance charger in the compartment so as long as I plug it in, it will keep the two deep cycles well charged. Plenty of room to relax here. Not shown in the picture is the small stainless grille that got mounted to the rear deck for cooking the burgers!

You can see the grille in this picture, the rod holder mounted to the rails, and the line hook for whoever is checking bank lines.

The 25 hp Johnson was replaced with a Brand new 4 cycle 50 horsepower Suzuki with a heavy duty lower unit. Reaper is no racing boat, but the 50 gets it where it needs to go. The one modification I did make, was to the knuckle that hooks the tilt motor to the engine itself. I took the original knuckle off, and fabricated a new one with the top of it cut out in a V shape, so if this engine hits a log, it WILL kick up. The down side is that I can't use a lot of power backing up or the engine lifts. However, it still backs normally if I don't get crazy with the throttle. This boat is meant to run smaller rivers, so it IS going to hit logs. Obviously it will not be intentional, but every so often there is that log that you just don't see the ripples in the water where that snag is hiding.

The console is home made, the Suzuki gauge/tach mounted in it, and the controller on the top left. The switches for the lights, bilge pump, aerator, horn, and a cig lighter for charging a phone etc. The wheel is the original plastic wheel the original console had on it, I just added the knuckle buster so I could turn a little faster when maneuvering up to a bank pole.
I need to add a fish finder to Reaper, but otherwise, she is ready to go.

A few pics of last years test runs to break in the engine and see how everything was going to work.