Carolina skiff for a bay boat?

Anyone have opinions on these. Looking at the jvx series in 20'.

i had a 16'. great litte boat, just wet.

They are well made boats... Blue wave is anther good affordable option...

Don't see them much around here, but back about 10 years ago, when fishing Tampa Bay, you would see a lot of the J series boats, heck I even saw J12s sporting around near shore. That says a lot about a boat, and Carolina Skiffs are good boats.

I guided out of a 24' CS from 1997 - 2008. Quite a few very reputable guides around here use the 24' CS, from back in the 1990's and currently.

My experience:

The 24' CS is a great boat and is what a I call a 'fishing vessel' - draft is 6" up to 2800 lb.'s in the shallows and you can still go to the mid bay wells, ... or even off-shore Gulf of Mexico on calm days.

I could have 5 guy's 200+ lb.s each and me (222 lb.'s) and still get up in 1' of water.

I personally would not get a CS unless it was 21' or a 24' for bay fishing, unless its used for only flats fishing.

The 24' CS is as dry a ride as you will find when navigated correctly.

Great on gas, I 1st had a 70 HP Evinrude on it that pushed it 35 mph, then a 115 Mariner that would get in the mid 50 mph.

Plenty of room and very comfortable for people to fish, especially drifting the shallows or on a windy day at a mid bay reef or oil & gas platform.

Very safe boat for a family and kids, ... I have navigated to home port safely even when confronted with an unpredicted a 65 mph "gust front" in June that lasted over 5 hrs. Just kept her at a steady 3000 rpm and road those big waves home. Quite a few guides were stranded at their fishing location that day until the gust front finished blowing through 5 hrs later.

Good Luck with your search and your choice !!!

We ran a 19' from 1993 to last year with a 70 hp. Replaced it this year with a 24' and a 150 hp Suzuki.

Both were great boats. The new one is more than twice the boat the old one was.

Nice set up redchevy !!!

Thanks we have enjoyed it so far.

Switching from the old to the new we were concerned about fuel consumption, but the 150 Suzuki easy on the gas. We burn roughly the same amount of fuel in the 150 and 24' boat as we did with the 19' 70HP carbed 2-stroke.