The boat is coming home!!! That’s great news, but at what cost? It ain’t coming cheap; I’ll tell you that. When is it ever though right? It’s been more than a month now since the boat has been away. After sitting at Austin Action Marine for about 3 weeks, I was told that it would be a $3500 fix. OUCH! Obviously that was not going to be a great option. I decided to take it to someone else for another opinion. I took it over to Chris Ray who runs Performance Outboards off of Hwy 71 as you’re headed out to Lake LBJ. Chris has worked on my boat before, but he was out of town when it started having problems a month ago. Anyways, I promptly got a call from Chris only 3 or 4 days after I took it in and he said it would be an $1800 fix for him to do. Still… OUCH! Buuut… that’s a heck of a lot better than the $3500 I was quoted by Austin Action Marine. I personally think they just didn’t want to work on it, so they gave me a super high quote. I had to do some serious thinking and weighing out of options about whether or not it was going to be worth an $1800 fix. I’ve had this boat for about 5 years now and I’ve got some good use out of it, but it is getting old. Ultimately, I have decided that once the motor is rebuilt, I am going to sell it and get something a little newer. It’s about time for an upgrade. This boat was great though and it helped me learn a lot about boat ownership and what to look for in my next boat. I’ll be sad to part with it, but excited to start looking for something that will have more of the qualities that I want in a boat.
Like I said, after I got the quote from Chris, I had to take a day or two to really think about decide what the best option would be. Once I decided, I called Chris and asked him when he could have the work done by. He said he might have it done by next week! Wee!! That was last week, so I’m expecting to get a call from him sometime towards the end of this week or maybe early next week. I’m hoping it’s done before Saturday, so I can participate in the ATX Bassmasters club tournament on Inks Lake this Saturday. If I don’t though, it’s not a big deal. That’s not one of the tournaments coming up that I’m really looking forward too…
The tournaments that I’m really excited for coming up are two tournaments on Belton: 1) The Tyson Dever Lone Star Bass Classic on Oct 1, and 2) Fishing For Freedom 2011 on Oct 15! This time of the year on Belton, I am just brimming with confidence at being able to perform well in tournaments. It’s the only time of the year that I feel like I have an advantage over other guys up there. It’s generally a very tough lake, but I know where they’re at this time of the year. It’s just a matter of putting all of my bites in the boat and making the right decisions. Finding them is not a problem for me right now.
The first tournament, The Tyson Dever Lone Star Bass Classic, is going to be a team style open tournament. There’s a guaranteed first place prize of $5,000. It’s also a charitable event that benefits the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation. It will be a great opportunity to support a great cause and hopefully make some money in the process! I’ll be fishing that event with Lance Hale a my team partner and we’ll be fishing out of his boat. I’m excited about that too, because Lance is a good fisherman and he has some great equipment on his boat that will really help us to execute what I suspect our game plan will be. We’re going out on Thursday to start pre-fishing.
The second tournament is the Fishing for Freedom tournament that I’ve fished for the past two years now. It’s an awesome event that I look forward to all year. I’ll talk more about that one as it gets closer, but I will say… first place prize is a new boat! Come on baby!
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