Re: Fish & Ski
It would probably be helpful if you shared what you have now, and what your budget is.
I re-entered boat ownership a couple months ago and decided to buy a Fish and Ski. I had read on here some posts that said F&S boats do a bad job of everything, but for me, I can't afford to buy a bass boat and a ski boat... nor would I have a place to put them. I was coming from fishing out of a canoe, so a F&S is way better.
I found on craigslist that F&S boats are not as numerous as ski and fishing dedicated boats. I don't know if that's because fewer of them were made, or because people like them and keep them. But, over several months there were always a couple showing up. There are a number of brands that made them in the 90's and I found that you could get nice ones in the $5K price range. Going up in price got a little newer, but they are largely built very similarly regardless of brand.
Mine has a hull similar to a bass boat, but the platforms are a little smaller on the front and back, they have a full walk through windshield, and they have an extra couple of seats. Some have cushions for the bow, but I would never drive around at speed with people up there because its so shallow. The biggest complaints I've seen is that they don't have rod storage, and I would agree with that. I can live with that limitation, and the smaller platforms aren't a big deal to me either since I'm coming from a canoe remember. Sitting in a fishing seat on the platform with a foot controlled trolling motor... its a great setup.
For watersports, we are just using the transom hooks and done fine with skiing, wakeboarding, and tubing. Many come with a pylon that fits in the fishing seat hole on the rear deck, but you can also do fine without it.
As far as size, mine is a 17.5' with a 115HP motor. I have 4 teen aged kids, so we can't all go out together because the max capacity is 4. I will go out with 5 sometimes at no-wake speed and then one of them is always in the water doing some watersport for most of the day. It handles that fine. If you go up to the 19' size, you can get max capacity of 5 or 6. I will probably upgrade to that at some point if we keep using it as much as we are now, however I love the 17.5' size because it fully fits in my garage (barely) and its easy to tow, launch, and small enough to get into tight spots fishing.
I've described what I really think of as F&S boats, and this is what you mostly see in the age range I described. There are also a lot of boats described as F&S that I'm seeing newer which look to be a regular stern drive bowrider that have a trolling motor and places to mount fishing seats. I don't really think of that as a real F&S, but if you are fishing in deeper water they are probably nice boats. I want to get into the shallows, so the outboard with a bass boat type hull is what I wanted.
I love my Fish and Ski and am very happy with the purchase. It amazes me that you see on Craigslist what amounts to aluminum jon boats with small outboards for $3-4K, and for a tad more you can get a really nice Fish and Ski.
