My Dad was retired from Texas Eastman Kodak and they would get a dividend bonus every April. If they wanted a new boat, they would drive to Monroe and buy one there since they didn't have to pay sales tax. My Dad went there in 1972 and bought a 15' stick steer w/ 50 hp outboard that I grew up fishing from.

Thank you for sharing, it brought back a lot of memories....

You have obviously not seen the Mega-Mansions near the dam

I bet they had the old stick steers hauled off to make room for the foundations.

We used to subscribe to that paper when I was a kid and I could hardly wait for the Sunday edition to roll around just so I could see the boat ad from Howard Griffin Marine. I grew up dirt poor in my early years and my dad couldn't afford anything like that. We had a 12 foot jon boat to fish out of with a 5 hp Sea King outboard. It was a Johnson/Evinrude sold by Montgomery Wards. Dad bought a 1952 Chevrolet pickup from an older gentleman in town who also owned this boat and motor when I was about six years old. He was a little pricey on the truck and dad told him if he'd throw in the boat and motor he had in his shed he'd take it at that price and they came to an agreement and we took it home. Dad came across a boat rack and a motor hauler that bolted to the bed of a pickup and we traveled all over north Louisiana fishing with that rig. Our trolling motor was dad sitting on the front seat on a boat cushion with a paddle.

Before Dad bought his stick steer, he bought a 9.9 Mercury and we would go to Woody's at Lake O' Pines and lease a flat bottom for a couple of bucks.

good stories; here's mine; in the 60's, Daddy had a 15ft? Lone Star with a giant 50hp Johnson motor; 23mph on a calm day; we catfished out of it on Lake Kemp west of Wichita Falls on the Waggoner Ranch;

had a 8x36 trailer house we used for wheat harvest then upgraded to a little cabin; used soured wheat to draw the catfish just off of Rattlesnake Island; ran trotlines in west coffee; caught a ton of eaters;

biggest on trotline maybe 15lbs; Daddy would come to school and get me out at noon, i'd pik a bud and off to the lake we'd go for the weekend; for a jillion weekends; what a raisin' i had;

brings back tears of joy

Lot of fond memories from those days. Much simpler and the funny thing is I caught fish!
Who woulda thought?

Was working in fiberglass in '71 fresh out of the Navy. Had a guy who splashed a Ouachita but had done a bad job on the back end of the mold. My payment for fixing it was I got to make two boats to make sure I had it fixed right. I made both single handed with the intentions of one to sell and one for my Dad. The one I sold I used the money to rig out Dad's. Never will forget his face when I pulled it up to his house and told him to go outside to see his birthday present.

Those were the days... Dan

I got fond memories of me and my brother and two friend's in a Skeeter Metro and another boat on Lake Lavon catching sand bass in the 70's

WOW! 1971 my senior year of high school and me starting out my journey of love for bass fishing out of my dads stick steering boat. He used to troll us around dragging Abu Spinners around for Sandbass and Stripers when we had a place down at Lake Whitney. I was already watching fishing shows on TV and it absolutely blew my mind the first time my dad took me out and he got on the front of that boat with the trolling motor and started down a bank catching fish on a Spinnerbait and heard stories of him as a young man fishing up and down the Brazos with old topwater lures and spinnerbaits.using old braided line.
Then later as I kind of inherited that old boat when I moved out to North Garland and even though I was at the early stages of my 20 year journey playing Fastpitch Softball tournaments I still ran to Malard Park at Lake Lavon and wore that little cove out for about 2 years trying my best to learn the great sport of bass fishing.
I still remember one evening just before dark heading back to the ramp and throwing a buzzbait by an old concrete ramp and all of a sudden an explosion on the water. I fought that fish in and got it to the boat and started jumping around the boat holding that fish up hollering like the young kid I was until I pretty much noticed there was no other person in site. I pulled out an old scale my dad had in the boat and it showed to be just under 5 lbs. No phones back then but I could not wait to get home and call my dad and let him know what I had caught and telling him I would clean the boat up for him and his buddy for their weekly catfishing trip.
Man how I wish I still had that old boat.

Dad had a yellow Sidewinder with a 65 Merc, stick steering up front, padded Igloo for a limit of largemouths in the middle and a kid in the back that thought he was in Heaven.

YUP!!

Bought my first boat when I was 15 in 1994. 16’ Ouchita. My dad had to tow it to the lake for me because I didn’t have a drivers license yet. Ouchita was a good little boat back in the day.

in early years of bass tournaments,not unusual to see 50 even 80 hp motors on 14 ft stick steering boats…