Drift Boat Question

[gman2153]

Question for the Guides. This is a pic from another site I visit and was posted by a guide in Montana. Besides the wooden construction - (looks perty must be a maintenance nightmare) , what about the seat configuration. 3 in line - vs two clients up front.. Would you guys buy a boat like this for your applications?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kelly_Palmer/BBW.jpg

[riptide]

I'm not a guide but have been doing the drift boat thing for about 3 years now. 2 people up front makes the boat harder to balance & control while rowing. If you're fishing with 2 other people and running plugs all day, then putting them both up front is a necessary evil. Otherwise if you're anchoring and fishing eggs or flies you would obviously want one up front and one in the back of the boat. Same if you're on a trout river fishing streamers or whatever. Here's a pic of my brother's Hyde. In this pic it is decked out for winter steelies, but we actually use it more for the upper Delaware system (which is why he bought fiberglass - it's quieter). If you look closely you can see that the front seat slides from side to side. This allows the best of both worlds. You can add a seat to fish two people up front. The boat in your picture appears to be one of the new ones that I believe are made of a type of plastic. They have the wood skeleton for looks and the plastic hull for durability. I still wouldn't run anything but an aluminum boat on the Salmon anywhere below the Pineville bridge. (Actually you're ok down to Sportsman's, below that... :rolleyes: )

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/BHaldeman/hyde.jpg