Plate Alloy, The Big Thing

Plate alloy is, in my opinion, where it’s at. I’ve been closely following the trends of fishing throughout the last thirty years so I can keep up with what’s hip and relevant, so I know full-well what all the young folks are using in their fishing boats. It’s something of a hobby of mine. Call it a passion, if you will, or…an obsession. I do follow it so closely that most of my social life has collapsed, so there’s that, but still. I tell you, plate alloy boats are in, and I could tell you every single fishing boat fad over the last few decades. Almost enough to compile it into a book of sorts. Like a coffee table book, even.

It sure did take us a while to get to this stage, using all this plate alloy. Just for an example, there was a brief phase back in the mid-nineties when the trendiest folks were building their boats out of bark. Seriously, that went on for about a year. Some famous fishing guru released a book and said that it was best to build your boat out of pieces of bark you find lying around, because it brought you closer to nature and was much cheaper. Also, it gave you a real sense of satisfaction. You just gathered up a load of bark, glued it together and bam. You’ve got yourself a functioning boat! For about…a month. Then it all fell apart because bark is inherently not very structurally sound. Plus there was no place to fix the snapper rack without taking massive chunks out of the boat, and I’m not going fishing without my snapper rack.

Oh, and then there was the plexiglass period. Because riding a boat that’s entirely see-through sans the engine was gimmicky! Turns out that scared the fish, and broke every marine safety violation in one go. And, I cannot stress this enough…no snapper racks. No rod holders. This is why fads come and go. Plate alloy boats are here to stay.

-Tim