The Joys Of A Car-Topper
Buying a little 12-foot aluminum boat is one of the best decisions Darrell and I have made. The process was not without frustration, but the end result was worth it. It took a lot of searching on Kijiji and other classifieds, a sale that fell through, several phone calls, and eventually a two-hour drive before we found it – our perfect boat – a 12ft Alumacraft with a 9.9hp Johnson motor.
I thought the lack of a trailer would be a major inconvenience but it turns out that having a boat we can throw in the back of the truck and drop into any body of water, regardless of the existence of a launch, is awesome!
Sure it sticks out a little, but it takes up less room than a trailer! The boat is surprisingly easy to load.
It took a bit of trial-and-error but eventually we figured out that propping the boat up with an oar was the easiest way to load and unload equipment.
Here's the best part of the boat. See that bracket...
...that bracket is for the wheels! That's right, our boat has detachable wheels 🙂 It's a simple matter of inserting two pins and then you can wheel the boat around wherever you like.
We get a lot of comments about the wheels. Usually from people having to lug their boat here and there while we happily roll ours around. I can tell you these wheels make Darrell's life easier because they make me less likely to whine and complain about moving the boat around 🙂
Ready to hit the water...
Having a little aluminum boat is really handy when putting the boat in at spots like this.
Once the boat is in the water you can take off the wheels, or leave them on and just raise them up.
This awesome little boat goes in easily anywhere we choose to fish. It braved the big water in Owen Sound during the salmon derby and yesterday it got us into some nice crappie on Guelph Lake.
A nice little crappie from Guelph Lake
Catching crappie on the drop-shot.
I love having this boat and look forward to taking it out each weekend. There’s no shortage of places we can put in at and there are many lakes yet to explore…
argosgirl
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