Alright I am looking to find out what you have added to your pontoon boats to help in catching the big catfish. I am adding a better depth finder and a 101 lb thrust trolling motor and extra batteries. was wondering what type of lighting you added to your boat? Lighting around the front? submersible lighting? Anything else you have done.

Please let me know and post pics of your boats

Thanks

Lots of rod holders...........stinkytom usesgreen 12 volt submersible lights from academy to light up deck.to see rod tips they attract less.bugs.......seversl guys have led lights under.deck to attract shad..........cd.dtereo playing some Elvis always.helps too

cant catch fish in a pontoon.....just saying

DDR has a nice set up. Lights. 21 rod holders. Plenty of room for chairs. Bait tank.

Bait cutting station.good too........make out of white cutting board........

I have had a pontoon for 3 months and it's head and shoulders above the 14 foot Kingfisher I had before. It can handle 30 mph wind with no problems and when it warms up, it will be great for my 4 year old.

Here are some pics of my rod holders. The first one is a setup I made for all four corners. They are removable and interchangeable. I made two with 5 holders and two with 4, just because that's the length of the PVC I had. The second pic is my drifting rig. It fit in the same slots as the other setups and can be fished in the front or back. I may set it up to work off the side too, but I have trouble controlling the drift that way.

I can fish about 16 wide using 7 rods with the two on the end facing out, as in the picture. Worked pretty well. The PVC is not going to break. The line will break before it does and my drags are set so that won't even be a possibility. It aint pretty, but it's cheap and effective.





Other tools I can't live without are a good fishfinder. I have the Lowrance HDS 5 with sidescan. But like others will tell you, get the biggest you can afford. Others on here go with Humminbird and I don't think you can go wrong with either.

I just made a couple of wind socks out of tarps from Harbor Freight. With my wife doing the sewing, we made a couple of square pyramid ones (4 triangles sewn together). The big one is 66 inches on all side and the smaller one is 45. The big one was a life saver on my last trip with winds up to 20mph. Slowed me down from over 1 mph down to .4-.5 mph. It wasn't even staying open all the way because I think my ropes were too short. I fixed that and will see how much better it works on my next trip.

Another vital piece of equipment would be a couple of box anchors. I haven't found me anyone in Abilene or close to make me any yet. The anchor you can see in the top picture is worthless with winds over 15. That was why I was drifting on my last trip. I also have three 10 foot metal poles for shallow water anchoring. I got them off a buddy's old tripod lattice style antennae he tore down. They work well, but they need the help of some box anchors to function well enough in 20mph winds.

I have some lights, both for lighting the deck when lots of light is needed and green LED lights for lighting up the rods, that I need to install. Once I do that and have obtain some box anchors, I'll be ready for another idea for improving fishing.

but how would you get stuck in a pontoon anyway.

PVC gets pretty fragile during the winter!!

Tom has caught a couple.

Maybe, but if the drag is set to 8-10 pounds, even fragile 1" pipe shouldn't even come close to breaking. I haven't fished when it was below freezing and I haven't caught anything larger than 16 pounds yet, but I have been hung up before while drifting and it's held up just fine. Not saying they are Bee Readys, but for under $50 for 18 holders for anchoring and 7 more while drifting, it works well.

I believe if anybody could it is Tom, but I just don't understand how he got inside the pontoon to begin with!

toms fish jump in the boat after them gummi worms and dr peppers and wow only one person got that

Wouldnt trust my rods to pvc holders just my opinion

I have Driftmaster and Bee Ready rod holders, transport rod holders, 85lb thrust TM, two live wells, but they are the small factory ones, 12 ft drift curtain that was on there when I bought the boat and it looks homemade. All this I did not add, previous owner was a catfisherman so it worked out good for me.
I just ordered last weekend white LED lights to put inside and blue for outside, they will go on this weekend.
I bought 2 box anchors from chuckp and am very happy with them.
I have an anchor like Got the fever also and for giggles tried it out last Sunday and it was not holding at all.
I'm thinking of getting a couple of Bert's portable trees.

Had not heard about Berts portable trees whats the scoop