How Not to Buy a Bigger Boat

[MathGeek]

Everyone who has seen Jaws probably remembers Roy Scheider's line, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." We've been happily fishing from the 16 ft aluminum boat for almost a decade now, and we're probably not the first to entertain similar thoughts after moving to Louisiana and having a few bumpy rides in or near the Gulf of Mexico. Even though the picture shows me giving my daughter a boating lesson on a calm Colorado reservoir, when the wind picked up there, it could get bumpy too.

Late last year, my wife and I worked out a budget, I picked a boat I liked and started looking for a local dealer. Unfortunately, purchase, fuel, and maintenance costs don't scale linearly with length of boats, they scale more closely with the weight or horsepower, meaning that upgrading from a 16 ft boat to a 20 ft boat entails about 4-5 times the purchase price and annual operating expenses. (Much more if one needs to upgrade the tow vehicle.) I began to rethink our plans after Duckman invited us to join his family surf fishing one day, and they showed us how to catch some of Louisiana's finest fish from the shore. Bank fishing is much more relaxed than boat fishing. You get to experience the sounds of the surf, the sand, the sun, the drag, and the fish, without the bouncing of the boat or the bills of boat ownership.

We hit the Bass Pro Shop Friday night and bought a couple more surf rods, and I'll soon be cutting some more PVC rod holders and possibly putting together a PVC bait cannon (like a spud gun) to launch frozen mullet 200 yards or more from the shore. Southern151 has also hinted at showing us how to catch big catfish in the Mississippi when the pulse of water from the midwestern snow melt pushes the water up into the trees that line the banks inside the levee. I think about how the disciples of Jesus would have probably been thrilled with a 16 ft aluminum boat and 20 hp motor. When the fishing was tough or the waters got rough, they needed something other than a bigger boat, with faith and prayer and Jesus himself providing for their needs.