Ultimate Utah fishing boat.

[Paddler]

Lots of advice here, some of it bad, dumb, and indifferent.

I've owned a number of boats in my time, and spend probably 60 days a year trolling in Utah and in Washington on the Columbia:

To advise anything but Max rated horsepower is stupid. Full stop. We live at high elevation, where you lose 3% horsepower for every thousand feet of elevation. At Strawberry, you're only operating with about 75% of your rated horsepower. Plenty of guys who tried to cut corners and cost on the motor, get to strawberry and can't hardly plane with two or three people. Dumb.

As for Midwest style boats, Lund and Crestliner. Tracker is junk, cheap for a reason.

As for professional style boats: Duckworth, North River, Alumaweld, etc. I currently have a 20' Duckworth and love it.

As for motors: I'm partial to Mercury, but it's hard to go wrong these days.

I couldn't disagree more.  It's not about cutting corners, it's about choosing the right engine for the job.  My Hewes was rated for up to 150HP.  I chose the 115HP because it was the highest state of tune for the block.  My original engine was the 2006, often referred to as the YamaMerc, 1.73L.  I repowered in early 2015 with the then new Mercury 2.1L 115HP.  The same block is used for the 90HP and 75HP, so again, the 115HP is the highest state of tune.  When I repowered I added the Smart Craft option, which allows me to control the RPMs in 10RPM increments between 550-1000RPM.

By going with the 115HP, I saved the extra cost and weight of the 150HP, which is ~$3200 and 100#, plus the cost of a kicker, which would be another $3400 plus controls and another 125#.  The total savings is in the neighborhood of $7000 and well over 200#.  It also simplifies my fishing, as I installed a Simrad AP14 autopilot.  Lower maintenance, too.

As for power, I have plenty.  I haven't paid attention to my WOT speed at Strawberry, maybe I'll check it this year, but the engine still feels torquey and the boat planes quickly.  As I said, at WB I recently hit 37MPH with 2 people in the boat and half a tank of fuel.  But by not maxing out my HP, I keep my idle speed at 2.8MPH @ 700RPM.  So, at WB or in the ocean, I can leave the marina or harbor, throttle up as conditions allow, set my autopilot to navigate to a wayppoint, which beeps when we arrive.  That could be 1/4 mile or 50 miles, never having to touch the steering wheel.  I then simply throttle back and deploy my gear.  Couldn't be simpler or more efficient.  Up at Strawberry or Jordanelle I have to take the extra step of deploying my drift sock system so I can get down to Kokanee speed, but that only takes a few minutes and works great.  Well enough that I caught 50# of fillets last year.

This is my third boat, bought my first 37 years ago.  I have fished out of La Push, Washington beginning in 2000, missing only 2020 because it was closed due to COVID.  I have been 58 miles offshore solo, no buddy boat.  My longest trip was 145 miles one day hunting tuna.  This approach works.  Now, my boat has limitations in that I don't have a bow mount trolling motor, which means I don't cruise the shoreline and cast into shore.  That's fine, I don't care to fish for bass anymore.  I can bottom bounce but prefer trolling crankbaits anyway.

So, when you've been 50+ miles offshore, or put 350# of albacore in your boat one day, or when you've run seven lines at once, and hooked up on six of them, and landed five, then we can talk about what is and what is not stupid.  Full stop.