Stratos Bass Boats???

[Bushwacker]

1162 miles, 16 Mountain Dews, a night at the Harbor Inn in Monroe City, MO----and I have a Stratos 284 to show for it. My wife and I took off Saturday morning at 5:30am and drove down there and really liked what we saw. It is everything the guy said it was, plus it has a 3 bank on-board charger and a four blade SS prop.

It does have a couple of issue, but for the price I paid I can deal with some issues. There is about a 2 inch gouge in the gelcoat where his "buddy" came over to talk to him and let his rope hook on the front of his boat bang down on it. I knew about it and got him to lower the price substantially so it is worth it to me. It is barely through the gel coat with no problems besides the cosmetic. Also, a rip in the middle seat cushion where a guy stepped and tore into it. I knew about that too so everything was as expected. There was a bass tournament going on at Mark Twain Lake accross the road from our hotel and a lot of guys were staying at our hotel and I got to talking about fishing with them and had a few of them check out the boat before I bought it and they all gave the thumbs up. Being a rookie glass man I brought in some experts to judge the gouge and they all said no problem. I am going to get the seat redone, and my dad is already working on ways to minimize the gel coat problems. He has more fun doing that than he actually does fishing.

My wife and I brought it home and took it out for a spin last night and I love the ride. It was cutting through the rollers in that 30mph wind like it was nothing. It is a very smooth ride and the 150 Evinrude really runs great. It took me a couple times up and down the lake to get the courage to open it all the way up, but it really flew when I did. Everything seems to work great on it. Now I am going to fish out of it a couple months and figure out if I am going to keep it or keep my Alumacraft. Right now I am strongly leaning toward the Stratos. I am planning on putting new Maxxum Pro 80 with universal sonar, a Lowrance LMS332C, and find something to replace the Lowrance X22 in the dash. Other than that, it looks ready to go.

Last night my wife and I washed and waxed it until about 11:30pm. You know she likes it when it was the first time she has waxed anything in her whole life. I am going to take picts of it tonight and I will post them here tomorrow. Again, thanks for all the advice. I am a very happy man so far.

[Bushwacker]

Here are the picts of my new fishing machine. We even had time to take my wife, sister-in law, and her boyfriend out to do a little panfishing and we got on to some nice sunfish (I'm the guide in the middle of the picture ). I was very impressed how you can have four adults all standing on the same side of the boat and it doesn't make the boat lean at all. Very smooth and nice ride too.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Sweet boat!

[st.crioxfishin]

very nice! Can't wait 'till the day I can afford one

[Deitz Dittrich]

Very pretty boat dude!!!.. Once youhave gone glass you will never go back!

[Tonka Boy]

Congrats on the boat bushwacker!!

[HaywardBound]

Nice boat! Your wife will love the dual console...(keep the wind from messin up her hair).

You'll have to let us know how fast it goes.

[The_Duckslayer]

Looks like you got a whole lotta boat for the money! Hope that it continues to do all that you want it to. For me... only aluminum will do. Duck hunting is far more important than fishing will ever be. My “fishing” boat is only as comfortable as the lawn chair that you bring along to sit in! Take care and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo