# New in TX Middle Coast



## saltyjones (Nov 1, 2021)

New to the site. Fish out of Port Aransas and Rockport. Been reading for a few months. Joining in. I’m in the process of selling a shallow running 23’ bay boat and then will replace with something I can pole into shallow waters. Narrowed it down some because I want the capacity of 4 people for those days that my wife and daughter want to take a ride but really looking for a 2 person poling skiff. Thinking of a Sabine Versatile or East Cape Evo X or Fury. Lots of great info on the site. Thanks everyone.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Welcome


----------



## CKEAT (Aug 26, 2015)

There are some skinny areas there, I would consider a tunnel skiff. I know Floyd does a tunnel and his boats look great at that price point. Evo X would be great too, not sure if EC does many tunnels on the X. Be a fun search though, good luck!

Oh, if you can find a Maverick HPX T, great shallow skiff as well.


----------



## BrandonFox (May 14, 2013)

Welcome. If you'd like to demo a versatile, i'll be on the middle coast several weekends in December. Welcome to join.


----------



## saltyjones (Nov 1, 2021)

BrandonFox said:


> Welcome. If you'd like to demo a versatile, i'll be on the middle coast several weekends in December. Welcome to join.


Thanks for the offer. I’ll be on the water some in December as well. What part of the area will you be in?


----------



## saltyjones (Nov 1, 2021)

CKEAT said:


> There are some skinny areas there, I would consider a tunnel skiff. I know Floyd does a tunnel and his boats look great at that price point. Evo X would be great too, not sure if EC does many tunnels on the X. Be a fun search though, good luck!
> 
> Oh, if you can find a Maverick HPX T, great shallow skiff as well.


Thanks for the feedback. I think EC only does the tunnel on the Fury. Trying to decide if I need the tunnel or not.


----------



## CKEAT (Aug 26, 2015)

The versatile tunnel would be a nice boat for the area too


----------



## BrandonFox (May 14, 2013)

saltyjones said:


> Thanks for the offer. I’ll be on the water some in December as well. What part of the area will you be in?


POC to SPI, depending on the weekend. Im sure we can set something up.


----------



## Snakesurf (Jun 18, 2019)

Welcome aboard! Tunnel for sure down there, getting to the poling water is half the battle.


----------



## Yako (Jan 7, 2019)

The middle Texas coast is a great place! Lots of traffic and fishing pressure but tons of fun. You will want to go with a tunnel, it is shallow shallow shallow.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

saltyjones said:


> Thanks for the feedback. I think EC only does the tunnel on the Fury. Trying to decide if I need the tunnel or not.


Very few will say a tunnel is not necessary but I will tell you it is very necessary if you want to get around without chopping grass, tearing up your lower unit, sanding prop blades etc. I have lived here 40 years.


----------



## saltyjones (Nov 1, 2021)

Smackdaddy53 said:


> Very few will say a tunnel is not necessary but I will tell you it is very necessary if you want to get around without chopping grass, tearing up your lower unit, sanding prop blades etc. I have lived here 40 years.


Thanks for the info. I'm thinking the same. I've run around all over Rockport and Aransas Pass and the kat hull and tunnel I have now on a bay boat is definitely key to being able to raise the jackplate and get water to the prop. I avoid jumping up in shallow water to avoid damage to the environment and the boat/motor but there are times that you end up running across a shallow area with the jack plate up and I don't want to lose this ability. I usually fish with just me +1 but I want a skiff with a 4 person capacity for the days that I bring the family out for a cruise. So I need something on the larger side of skiffs. I keep thinking the Fury tunnel is probably the best option for me. I hear the Evo X is possibly more stable and handles bigger water a little better but I think the Fury with the tunnel might be best from Rockport south.


----------



## Zika (Aug 6, 2015)

Welcome aboard. Plenty of good info on here and a great sounding board for input on different models, as you've just experienced. Look forward to hearing what you end up with.


----------



## coconutgroves (Sep 23, 2013)

Welcome - I don't fish a tunnel in those areas and do pretty good. But.... we have hundreds of miles of backwater lakes and creeks that the boats you mentioned cannot access - tunnel or not. For our waters, you really need 3 boats - a Glades Skiff for the super skinny, a full size skiff for the common areas, and a higher sided boat to take ocean side for tarpon and the beach side.

I used to think I needed a tunnel here, but my last two skiffs have not been tunnel. It forced me to fish differently, and also think differently. I catch larger fish now consistently, and just pole out a bit more when I need to get on plane. But I also raised my engine to the highest bolt, have a jack plate, compression plate, and Jack Foreman water pickups on my Tohatsu. @Smackdaddy53 has a killer lower water pickup that allows people to get up in the shallowest water possible - check it out.


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

I have no tunnel currently and don’t miss it. Welcome to the area. I fish POC-Rockport area as well.


----------



## CKEAT (Aug 26, 2015)

I fish 4 and run super skinny but it is a tunnel and pretty light weight boat.

running with bullet at top of tunnel flow. Bad pic hard to take video or pics without another dude to help offset weight a bit.


----------



## Slacker (Oct 7, 2016)

So, I’m just going to blurt this right out…In my opinion, the Fury is for Florida shallow, not South Texas shallow. Add a tunnel and it will probably be more limiting since it will draft more with the same load. I’d suggest taking every ride you can on any kind of skiff before making a decision, but especially on that boat. A test ride on Lake Conway won’t tell you anything about shallow water operation, so try to get on one here in Texas. 

As an aside, I probably take my wife and 4 yo daughters joyriding more often than I fish. While tiller steer might not be your first thought for a family boat, ours has been great for poking around islands and finding nice sandbars for swimming. Without the console, the girls have a lot of space to play or crash out on their beanbag. We make good memories.

Welcome and enjoy boat hunting. It’s a great pastime.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Slacker said:


> So, I’m just going to blurt this right out…In my opinion, the Fury is for Florida shallow, not South Texas shallow. Add a tunnel and it will probably be more limiting since it will draft more with the same load. I’d suggest taking every ride you can on any kind of skiff before making a decision, but especially on that boat. A test ride on Lake Conway won’t tell you anything about shallow water operation, so try to get on one here in Texas.
> 
> As an aside, I probably take my wife and 4 yo daughters joyriding more often than I fish. While tiller steer might not be your first thought for a family boat, ours has been great for poking around islands and finding nice sandbars for swimming. Without the console, the girls have a lot of space to play or crash out on their beanbag. We make good memories.
> 
> Welcome and enjoy boat hunting. It’s a great pastime.


One of my shallow water pickup customers runs a Fury guiding full time on the middle coast, it will run in less than 6” all day with my pickup system, I ran it. Draft is 7-8” and it is very stable. 
This is a common misconception about tunnels and added draft. If you do the volume and draft calculations a normal sized tunnel only costs you less than 1/2” draft. I’ve compared in the real world as well.
Here is something I wrote and saved years ago. You can change the dimensions and see the actual loss.

A tunnel that is 3" deep at the transom and slopes down flush with the bottom that is 14" wide and 32" long has about 672 cubic inches of volume. A cubic foot is 1728 inches and can float about 62 pounds.
672\1728 is ~0.38 so multiply 62x.38 and you get 23.56# loss of bouyancy. That is just a rough tunnel size and shape, most tunnels have sloped sides so that is even less volume lost. Disperse that along all that wetted area of a hull and the draft gain is miniscule (like 1/4" with a man on the bow when draft matters most). I can see if it is a 6" deep tunnel that is 48" long and 18" wide like some of the aluminum tunnel hulls but most skiff tunnels I have seen are not very big at all.


----------



## saltyjones (Nov 1, 2021)

CKEAT said:


> I fish 4 and run super skinny but it is a tunnel and pretty light weight boat.
> 
> running with bullet at top of tunnel flow. Bad pic hard to take video or pics without another dude to help offset weight a bit.


What boat are you running there?


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

saltyjones said:


> What boat are you running there?


He’s running a Chittum tunnel and he’s running shallower than my Chittum non-tunnel! I may need to price out a new one😂


----------



## Slacker (Oct 7, 2016)

Mac, you seem very knowledgeable, so I will accept your buoyancy number for the sake of our discussion. I consider an incremental loss or gain of 1/4-1/2” draft significant. For me, it‘s the difference between belly-sliding over a high spot and sinking in stinky mud trying to push several hundred pounds of skiff backwards off that same hump. For many, 23 pounds is enough reason to choose one outboard over another. 

I singled out the Fury for test fishing because I personally considered and decided against one when I built my Glide in 2014. The decision was driven in large part by feedback from an owner who felt limited by its draft fishing the same areas the OP wants to fish. While I think they are pretty, they are realistically 8” boats. If OP tries one and it’s good enough for him, great. I just wanted to put some information out there for him. Screen grab of tunnel Fury...


----------



## CKEAT (Aug 26, 2015)

Yea it’s a Chittum LM II with @Smackdaddy53 low water pick up. Wouldn’t change a thing. Been great boat. Many tunnel boats can be set up without spending that much coin.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Slacker said:


> Mac, you seem very knowledgeable, so I will accept your buoyancy number for the sake of our discussion. I consider an incremental loss or gain of 1/4-1/2” draft significant. For me, it‘s the difference between belly-sliding over a high spot and sinking in stinky mud trying to push several hundred pounds of skiff backwards off that same hump. For many, 23 pounds is enough reason to choose one outboard over another.
> 
> I singled out the Fury for test fishing because I personally considered and decided against one when I built my Glide in 2014. The decision was driven in large part by feedback from an owner who felt limited by its draft fishing the same areas the OP wants to fish. While I think they are pretty, they are realistically 8” boats. If OP tries one and it’s good enough for him, great. I just wanted to put some information out there for him. Screen grab of tunnel Fury...


They put those gargantuan ship anchors on the transoms of some of these boats and wonder why they squat.
If 25 pounds bothered some folks they would go on a diet...haha
My HPX-T gets me everywhere I could ask to pole. On those winter low tide days I run less fuel, minimal gear etc. and nevee have any issue poling where redfish are crawling with backs out of the water.
People claim you don’t need to be able to jump on plane in 8” and you can just pole in and out of the back lakes to deeper water...this isn’t Florida where there is a channel off the edge of flats just about everywhere. Some back lakes I fish you have to run in sub 6” water for ten minutes or more to access. When I want to leave I’ll find a pothole for my prop and jump on plane in half a boat length and I’m gone.

No one is poling for hours in and out of these areas just to save 1/4” draft.

Here is a photo of his Fury where the outboard runs perfectly after the low water pickup install. I ran the boat then let him go at it once I was satisfied.


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

I definitely need that Smack low water pickup so I can run all the way jacked for >200 yds.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Matts said:


> I definitely need that Smack low water pickup so I can run all the way jacked for >200 yds.


Get on the list! You can run fully jacked all day.


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

Need to. Skiff runs so perfectly now that it’s hard to want to change much.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Matts said:


> Need to. Skiff runs so perfectly now that it’s hard to want to change much.


I thought you wanted to run fully jacked a long time without overheating?


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

Smackdaddy53 said:


> I thought you wanted to run fully jacked a long time without overheating?


That’s true but only need it every once in a while.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Matts said:


> That’s true but only need it every once in a while.


Better to have it and not need it...


----------



## Matts (Sep 2, 2015)

Smackdaddy53 said:


> Better to have it and not need it...


True dat! Does the install still require permanent removal of part of the engine shaft cover?


----------



## Slacker (Oct 7, 2016)

Well, Mac, my point is really that the Fury is much the same as a tower boat, numbers-wise. That means you’ll be fishing with them. He’s already been there and done that.


----------



## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Matts said:


> True dat! Does the install still require permanent removal of part of the engine shaft cover?


No, it never did. I don’t know what an engine shaft cover is though.


----------



## ShannonD (Aug 25, 2013)

Welcome home Texas. We have obviously invaded a Florida-based website and are conducting an insurgency. ACTUALLY, Florida has been so friendly to little-ole texas that it is a great place to participate - here on this site. Plenty of opinions and experience here, but that CKEAT guy? Watch out for him!


----------



## Raulie Hurtado (Nov 29, 2021)

Heard so many great things about the Texas coast. I really wanna visit soon!


----------



## JWAL (Oct 1, 2021)

Welcome!


----------



## The Fin (Sep 28, 2021)

saltyjones said:


> New to the site. Fish out of Port Aransas and Rockport. Been reading for a few months. Joining in. I’m in the process of selling a shallow running 23’ bay boat and then will replace with something I can pole into shallow waters. Narrowed it down some because I want the capacity of 4 people for those days that my wife and daughter want to take a ride but really looking for a 2 person poling skiff. Thinking of a Sabine Versatile or East Cape Evo X or Fury. Lots of great info on the site. Thanks everyone.


Welcome! Stay tuned into Smackdaddy53, he seems to have a pretty good handle on the Texas coastal scene!


----------



## TX_Brad (Jun 8, 2018)

Welcome. If you want a ride in a Fury (non-tunnel) let me know. Side console/90hp and I can still get sub 8” all day. It’s not Microskiff skinny, but it’ll get most places. Hit me up and I’ll drag it down from Galveston over the holidays. And as others have mentioned, a lot of good boats (Sabine, Mav, HB , BT, etc) that will work down there and enough people to let you try one out.


----------

