Greetings from Antarctica!... actually Iowa... but with the night time lows lately around minus 15 degrees I am getting some serious cabin fever

Spring fishing can not get here fast enough.

I am looking to get a new boat this spring and would like to get an aluminum bass boat. I currently own a 18ft fiberglass Astro Fish and Ski with a 150hp Mercury. This is too large of a boat for the kind of fishing I like to do most of the time. I only fish here in Iowa. All the lakes I fish are no wake lakes so engine size is pretty much useless. I am looking at boats around 16ft in length. Does anyone have any experience with the Lowe Stinger boats? Also anyone have good or bad experiences with the Tracker aluminum boats?

Hey Frogger, you may wish to check out the G-3 1850, it's a great boat.I fished out of one all this summer and fall. Handles the Mississippi river very well and is fanyastic on the smaller -0no wake lakes. I'm from Muscatine. Johnnie

Hey Johnnie,... I will have to give those a good looking into. I live just north of Cedar Rapids, so I am hoping to find a dealer within 2 hours drive of where I live. There is a Lowe dealer down your way and up toward Cedar Falls. I will have to check out the dealers of the G-3 boats.

I fish Lake MacBride quite a bit and plan on getting a 9.9hp engine on the boat that I decide to purchase. I know this engine will not push a very large boat very fast, so I will try to stay close to 16ft in length. But it will sure beat trying to use a trolling motor at Lake MacBride all summer.

I think Lund, Crestliner, Ranger and Trophy make some nice aluminum boats in that 16 ft. range also.

I have heard good things about Lowe boats. The one bad thing I heard about tracker boats is electrical wiring issues (from several different anglers that I know who owned trackers).

Are you looking for a V-Hull, or Flat Bottom/Modified V-Hull ?

Alumacraft makes very nice boats too...

I am most interested in a modified V hull... at this point Lowe, Alumacraft, and G-3 are at the top of my list.

I am really liking the Lowe Stinger ST-170...

Thanks for everyones' input.

We have a G-3 dealer in Muscatine-Bend City Marine-263-0132. Good luck, Johnnie