posted 01-10-2012 05:00 PM ET (US)         

Ride - Subjective. The 170 might pound harder into a head sea and be a bit wetter. It will be more stable though and if it gets really nasty see Safety.

Do you backtroll for eyes? The 170 might not do as well as the Lund there. If you cast/drift/troll, the Whaler will perform very well with its more stable design

Kicker should easily hang on the transom.

posted 01-10-2012 06:26 PM ET (US)            

Safety wise, the Alaskan could sink while the whaler is for all intents and purposes unsinkable.

I am not sure I would agree on the whaler having better stability. The Alaskan is a big wide light buoyant boat.

Moving to the Montauk you will be giving up a LOT of storage space compared to the Alaskan.

I would not hesitate to take a 17 Montauk far offshore in great lakes water, in fact I used to take mine routinely 20-30 miles from port and 12-20 miles offshore fishing salmon on Lake Ontario (especially with a kicker). I expect initially you will feel less safe due to the loss of boat size, but after a while will end up feeling more confident in your Montauk's capabilities and not miss the Alaskan at all (except for the aforementioned significant loss of storage).

posted 01-10-2012 07:12 PM ET (US)            

The down side compared to what you are used to will be a large sacrafice in interior room for storage and moving around. These boats are just not made with storage or livewells and the comparatively narrow beam makes 8-10 hours on the water a bit cramped. Don't plan to have more than 2 adults on board - the boat can handle it but it is just too cramped.

I really like the idea of the Montauk 19 with a wider beam. I am sure this boat would be far superior for this type of fishing.

posted 01-11-2012 09:55 AM ET (US)         

Hitting a chunk at speed might be a different story but breaking through the thin ice that formed over night won't be a problem for a fiberglass Whaler.

posted 01-11-2012 05:27 PM ET (US)            

Y'all are brave and hardy.

posted 01-11-2012 05:37 PM ET (US)            

I'm just an engineer with all school and no experience. And experience counts.

posted 01-12-2012 08:56 PM ET (US)            

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_DmrgSorg0

The speed of the current varies daily between 13 to 18+ mph depending on the amount of water the Robert Moses Power Plant and its Canadian counterpart draw from the river above the falls. The water draw is controlled by treaty, but I heard an engineer at the RMPP say that between the two power plants they have the capacity to draw enough water from the Niagara River to essentially turn the falls off.

Below these class 6 rapids the river enters the world's largest whirlpool. There is a company that runs jet boat tours past "Devils Hole" where I fish, up into the whirlpool, and runs a bit of the class 5 rapids downstream of the Class 6 shown in the above video. Here’s one of their 2000+hp diesel boats running three Kamewah Waterjets for propulsion upriver:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ4XzxVZ4jw&feature=related

On the Canadian side of the river, some of the water in Devils Hole is quite rough as you can see in the video, however on the American side there are areas of slack water, a fishing pier and shore access - you can catch fish like this all winter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I7zTxP6r0E

To get into this clam water area you have to navigate the narrows below the two power plant effluents into the river. At this point the river current varies between 11-13 mph but is navigable. In order to make any progress upriver through this point, you have to pretty much go full throttle, wide open and get through this area as fast as possible. As you might be able to imagine, in this turbulent current, large pieces of ice can surface can unexpectedly surface and meet with the bow of your boat running at full speed with EXTREME force. The ice is not really sharp being constantly tumbled in the current, but the bows of the guide's aluminum boats that run these waters regularly are really beat up pretty badly. Most look like they have run into docks or pilings, often, but it is the ice. You need a premium welded aluminum boat to survive this kind of abuse, and Lunds are at the lower end of this spectrum being a higher-end, but riveted boat. Certain models of Crestliners, Alumawelds, and Hewescrafts are the boats of choice due to their welded-seam hulls with extra thick bottoms.

This is the Lewiston (NY) - Queenstown (Canada) area downstream of Devils Hole above the launch ramp areas on both sides of the river. Some of the best winter steelhead fishing in the world is literally 250 yards+ upstream of the launch ramp. In this area, just about any boat will do; the current is mild by comparison and ice floats on the surface and a boater simply has to steer around the larger chunks that float downstream:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl0o11KK5Wo

I fished this area for years in my old 13 sport. When my dad got the itch to come along on a trip, we would take his old Crestliner through to the areas I could not get to in the 13. He kept the Crestliner as our winter fishing boat along with his whaler as our summer and vacation boat. Almost every spring, I would need to patch up cracks and repair the gelcoat on the bow of my 13 from ice damage. In all the years I fished there, I never hit a large piece of ice with the whaler itself, but I did hit a large piece of shore ice that had broken away into the current that surfaced under the outboard. It completely sheared off one blade of the aluminum propeller and bent the other two. I was able to limp back to the dock and replace it with my spare and continue the trip. Eh, to be young and foolish again…

Each spring, the guides pound the dents out of the bows of their boats and put them into storage in favor of their large lake boats to run charters out of Wilson and Olcott, NY. My father and I ran one of the first charter boats on Lake Ontario back in the 70s.

Here's a guide’s Lund boat running up into devils hole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpMdhqp7Z98&feature=endscreen&NR=1

posted 01-13-2012 12:53 PM ET (US)            

Whalers are great boats and I have four of them including one blow boat. However, fiberglass is worrisome in the real world of hard use, running rivers - almost everything but open water - including loading and unloading. Specifically, I have to worry a ton more about bruising fiberglass and gelcoat than any other boat I've owned including wood. With my wood boats (white water river boats) rub rails, bottoms and vulnerable areas were well protected with white oak and poly E strips and panels. Any damage to wood I found extremely easy to fix. I still find fiberglass repair mysterious.

I am reluctant to take my Outrage into skinny areas, haul a couple of big fenders all the time and enough rope to cross tie almost anywhere. Nevertheless, there are plenty of places I won't even tie up to. This is why I have kept the 13 and even the 11 - the 13 is so perfect for so many uses and I think is less vulnerable to damage than the bigger boat.

All this being said - I think the best gol dang power boat for hard use is welded aluminum and if I had the budget and found a deal it' would be a Wooldridge sled with serious power and jet pump so I could run the bigger Michigan rivers like the Muskegon or Manistee. Wooldridge, Alumaweld, Duckworth (might be too big), Willie - not sure of all of them, but they are great boats and tough as can be. I would not consider riveted boat for the uses described and especially if you know you are going to hit stuff including logs and boulders.

Moreover, Wooldridge makes superior off shore boats as do several Pacific NW manufacturers - I understand my cousin in Bellingham has a 39 Alaskan w/ twin Yanmars all rigged for crabbing, fishing and more.