My building of a 16' Pontoon boat is a couple more hours of labor away from being a complete fishing machine. I wanted a tank with lots of room and lots of storage...I have no pics yet (will have them soon) but is has a full diamond plate floor and is 10 feet by 40.75 inches wide. It's got a sweet cage for the people up front so they don't go in the drink on an unexpected oar stroke. The boat is large enough to seat two people side by side up front just like it's drift boat cousin...the entire width of the boat is around 7.5 feet...so my question is...will this be worthy of the OP rivers like the Hoh and Sol Duc...or am I a little on the wide load side? It's got 24" tubes by the way...oh and it's a high frame which will be above the water somewhere in the neighborhood of a foot to a foot and a half...

Sounds like a nice ride,maybe tight in some of the upper stretches but good over all.Good luck,
SZ

I don't see any real problems in the Hoh. Other streams up that way...maybe not.

two guys up front in a cat.....yikes.

+1

Not sure how the side by side seating up front will work just yet...it may not work at all but the option is there and there is plenty of room...just don't know how the boat will handle...so am I too wide for the Sol Duc?

Personally, I wouldn't want that on the upper Duc due to size and weight. People with good skills and knowledge of the river CAN make it down in driftboats but you'd better not f' up. Good to go on the Hoh but don't know why you'd pick that boat over your db? My guess is that the toon will take more effort to row and and you won't be able to slow yourself down and hold in water anywhere like a db. Sounds like a good craft for extended camping floats though on places like the Grande Ronde or Deschutes.

My guess would be that it will want to spin around on you when the current catches the inside of either toon.. having more weight in the back will help that. But, on the upside, it will stop better in heavy water.

With the dimensions that you gave, it sounds a little too wide for those stretches IMO.

I can always build another frame that is skinnier...no biggy...she will get tested this weekend on the water and the diamond plate floors are screamin for blood.

There are only a couple drifts over there that I wouldn't take that boat on, due to it being too long/wide to easily navigate a few spots when they are in prime fishing conditions...most the rest should be fine.

Fish on...

Todd

Pix please!

Pics are on the way soon...

see the big cats all the time on the placid rivers up north ... have fun on the better water out here