Gnwdad

Icurrently have a 16 foot Dawson boat that I flounder out of, it has a decent draft (nothing like my buddies 1756 G-3). I'm not able to flounder as close to the banks or sand bars as I would like, there are a few other issues with my set up that I'm unhappy with. I found a 18' pontoon boat that I was wanting to get to make a bigger flounder rig out of. It has a new trailer and has been stripped down (pontoon and new 5/8" marine plywood). I have no dealings with a pontoon boat and have no idea what type of draft they have, any help? I know it want be as good as a Jon style boat, I would hope itwould be close to what I have now. The water line on the boat looks to be around 8"-10'.

David Ridenour

Stripped down it may be a little lighter than before. However you should be able to look at the pontoons and find a waterline. Measure to the bottom and that should be pretty close to your draft. 8-10" sounds in the range.

Reel Twiztid

Post back with a update if you do get the pontoon. That would make one hell of a platform with endless lighting options. Not to mention you could pile a lot of folks on it.

bare bones

I had a 25 ft pontoon boat and it was not easy to push around in shallow water. I know yours is 18 ft and weight and wind drag would be a lot less but I would not even think about floundering with one. It only takes a slight wind to push it around.

fishFEEDER9697

I don't mean to deter you from something you are set on doing, but...

there is no way I would flounder out of a pontoon boat, around here anyway. Alot of the flounder we see around this area are in about 6 in. of water. You would never get to them/ run across them in a pontoon boat. Especially in the summer and fall when the water is almost always a little murky, and along the shoreline is the only place you can see the bottom.

The bouyant force on any object is equal to the weight of the fluid that is displaced. Unless you can get or make your pontoon boat extremely light, the pontoons will never displace enough water to float it high enough.

This is why shallow "v" bottom boats are good and flat bottom boats even better. They are very light and displace as much water as possible to float very high in the water. They have no problem cruising along the shoreline.

Good luck.

fishFEEDER9697

it would make a great platform though.

Gnwdad

Thanks guys for your thoughts.

Last summer I met the Florida limit 4 out of 30 plus times I went, therefor I'm good with the amount of flonder I stick. I normally do not fish close to the banks because my boat will not allow me to. I use a 70# trolling motor and make up for it by covering 5 times the amount of area that I could cover poling or taking the time to fish around all the peirs, etc. I normaly fish out past the docks unless there is a good distance between them. I can pick up the pontoon for a couple hundred dollars and think it would make a sure enough flounder pounder/ good time platform. If the draft is pretty close to my current boat I was thinking oF putting my10500/7500 watt generator on it with 15500 watt lights.

FlounderAssassin

That would be a LOT of light!!! but a generator that size is also going to be LOUD!!!

Gnwdad

Yea, I know. I think I can set it up with some type of i sound box.