The Barge was sold last weekend and will be moving to Winni. We had many, many enjoyable days on The Barge, a real fishing machine all the years we had her, will miss the old gal.
We priced it right in the middle of book value and had no problems whatsoever selling her, had 10 E mails in 8 hours on Craig's List. Got my asking price with no haggling at all from the first person we showed it to.
My advice to anyone thinking they might have a boat to sell in the future, "KEEP THE SEATS AND CUSHIONS CLEANED AND WELL CONDITIONED" this was the number one question and most important factor in selling my boat. The Barge was 11 years old, but the seats were like new, we cleaned and conditioned them with Mothers and "303" 3 times a season and any cushion in need of any repair at all, was re-done each winter.
The Barge will be retired and all done fishing on the 27th of May, it will be docked across from Diamond by Rattlesnake.
Anyone in need of a fishing and/or family boat, Pontoon boats are a super dual purpose boat. Our new boat will also be a Pontoon boat also, a little smaller, a custom made Bennington and geared more towards fishing, but no comfort was compromised in the design. We will trailer her back and forth from NH to Florida in the winter, she will fish 9 months of the year and I will be living a dream.
No photos yet, being built 3rd week in May, hope to have her maiden voyage Memorial Day weekend.
Not much to report from Squam yet, a few 2 yr olds are being boated, some Bows, we suspect a slow year due to maybe 3 year class failures in a row if the 2010 class also fails. There are no 2 or 3 yr olds to speak of, we hope to see more and more 2 yr olds (the future of the lake) as the water warms up. The few 2 yr olds caught are 17 to 19 inches and super fat and healthy, so far I only know of a 1/2 dozen or so, however the season is young.
Big John
