I purchased a Bass Tracker II boat about two years ago and I do like my boat. The boat cost $ 2500; it came equipped with a 35 HP Mercury, an electric start, a console foot controlled trolling motor, and one depth finder. It is extremely light making it easy to haul and to maneuver on and off the trailer.
Now after a couple of years, and this being my first fishing boat, I started looking at purchasing another boat. The feature I was most interested in was more storage, and the newer models seem to fit the bill as they are generally wider now then previous models. The newer boats also have more open space for walking and fishing making it easy to move around to cast. But why spend upwards of $ 9000 for a different boat when I could upgrade my current tracker. I know a lot of people would say that's not that much money but I am frugal; okay, some may say cheap.
I did shop around and looked at other fishing boats; I found some nice bass boats, but I also found boats that needed plenty of work. The bottom line is that I did not find exactly what I was looking for; the wider boats always had more HP and I am satisfied with the 35 HP motor I have. The speed is more then ample for the lakes I fish and I get good fuel mileage. That's an important question to ask yourself when considering all the options; "what do I need for the type of fishing I do and the lakes I fish?"
As you may have guessed, I decided to keep and upgrade my bass tracker. My first goal was to create more storage; the back of my boat had a swivel seat, two batteries and a gas tank on the floor which means the person fishing at the back of the boat had to fumble around all this boat gear. My first upgrade was to raise the back floor of the boat to the same level as the front. I found that a plastic pallet fit my needs for water proof flooring perfectly and added this to the back of the boat. I then attached hinges to gain access to my batteries and gas tank. One reason the pallet worked so well is that it contains small triangle holes that prevent battery or gas fumes from building up. Next I moved and bolted the swivel seat on to my "new floor". I was very pleased how this turned out both in function and in looks. I completed my task of more storage. Now my gas tank and three batteries are stored under the new floor with room for other fishing gear, minnow bucket, anchor, extra tackle box and so on. I was still looking to improve my space usage and I did not have a good place to put the three or four rods I use, so I mounted some simple vertical rod holders constructed from PVC to the front of my console. Still, I was not done with storage. I wanted a good location to store my life jackets and dip net. To solve this issue I added a 4 foot wide by 1foot high piece of netting on a small area opposite of the console unused space to store these items. This also allowed for quick repatriation of the jackets and net when needed.
Now that my storage issues were improved, I moved on to some other projects I had in mind. I added a GPS depth finder (used PVC conduit fittings for custom swivel base), upgraded my 28 # trolling motor to a 55 # trolling motor and purchased 6 ply trailer tires. These items I consider mandatory upgrades to improve the my ability to find fish and control the boat on a windy day and last tires, to insure no issues on traveling to our favorite fishing spots. But I did install some nice to have items such as a 3 bank on board battery charger; plug it in and charge all three batteries at once. Also, a battery switch was installed giving me the option to select which trolling battery to use straight from my console. To finish things off I added a couple nice to have plastic tool holders in front and one at the back of the boat; inexpensive and yet very handy.
My total upgrade costs for the floor, trolling motor, storage net, on board battery charger, battery switch, tool holders, tires, GPS depth finder and new swivel seats came to around $ 825. And being cheap, I mean frugal, I shopped around for the best prices I could find and waited for some items to be on sale. By the way, I did not do this all at once; I worked on the upgrades over a 6 month period. Yes I could have purchased a newer boat, but by implementing these upgrades, I ended up having a boat that has everything I wanted and a lot of new equipment without breaking the bank.
All I can say each case is different, it can be a lot of fun to upgrade your boat and you will know exactly what condition your equipment is in. But if you need a larger or smaller boat to meet your fishing needs start looking around for those good deals.
If you would like to see this article complete with photos please click here [http://www.bluelaketackle.com/blog/boating/boating-how-tos/bass-tracker-upgrades-part-1.htm].