I have wanted a small pontoon boat for several years now, but with the existing battery of watercraft (15' SC Lund/Honda 40, 16' river canoe, 12' Pack canoe w/ oars, Super Fat Cat) it's been difficult to justify.

I stumbled on a Outcast Oncilla, new on EBay for $249 shipped... not to difficult to justify! The only immediate additions I have in mind are a rod holder, some straps to secure a rod travel tube (holds multiple 3-5pc rods in their socks), and I have a HUGE fanny pack that can be easily secured to the back of the seat for layers, rain coat, food, water, etc... and I'll utilize two old down rigger balls as an anchor (the rest of anchor rigging is built into the boat). I'll also rig a shock cord as a 'safety' line for my 35" TLC XL teardrop net. One thing I am curious about is the possibility of configuring a portable DC rig for my Lowrance... since I already have one, why not, right?

I will be using this primarily for half day (4-6 hour) outings on still water. I am a minimalist and work out of the front portion of a Fishpond Double Haul in pretty much all of my different fishing environments (only wearing it when I wade), always C&R, so I don't need much in the way of gear or cargo capacity. I have some standard fins and a high capacity, dual direction pump that I use with the Fat Cat. Depending on how far I need to deflate it to get it to seat well in the back of my truck, I may get lazy and add a DC pump to the mix as well.

I would like to hear comments, suggestion, concerns, ideas, etc from those of you with pontoon boat experience. If you have any good ideas how to make all this damned snow and ice go away faster, I'll actually pay for those!

TL's~

If your looking for a portable rig, try an icefishing unit. I know you can get a housing unit to fit a gell-cell and the locator unit for some boat mounted models. Cabela's sells soft cases for some Lowrances which may work better on your pontoon than a hard plastic unit. Vexilar makes both hard and soft cases. I know the hard case can be modified to fit other unit than theirs but don't know if the soft cases can. Lowrance does make portable models for icefishing and I'm sure you could get a hold of their cases too if you contacted a dealer.

http://www.vexilar.com/pages/accessories/a..._cases_all.html
http://www.vexilar.com/pages/accessories/a...tpacks_all.html
http://www.lowrance.com/Products/Marine/Ic...le-Fishfinders/

Try looking at these links and see if they help

River

Thanks. I have an X-49 set up on my outboard that I can easily share, and have emails out to several dealers regarding getting another mounting base, transducer, AC connection and compact battery set up.

Alright, got the boat today... with the help of my 4yr old it only took me less than 1 minute per pontoon (4 pontoons) to get to operating pressure... I'm using a texsport hand pump. The same company makes several interesting electric pumps, although I'm not really sure I see the need, and this one looks like a great solution for $18... if anyone has any feedback specific to this product I would love to hear it, their hand pump kicks butt.

I can't believe they ship these things without oar rights... other than that it's a pretty slick little rig, the built in anchor system is pretty slick, seat has a wide range of adjustment, and the foot bar can be mounted in two positions as well. I think the 6' oars will be fine, some of the channels in the larger marshes around here will get tight enough. I can't wait to splash this sucker!

TL's~