I was just curious what you thought.

Pretty sure outdoor therapy has the 190. Maybe he will chime in

Guess I should have posted this in the "poor" Bass Fisher forum.

I own a 2009 pt190 with the 90 optimax.

Its a good boat, has a launch ramp for a front deck. will run 40 -50mph depending on the lake conditions. Will also go most places you have the kahonees to take it. Lots of storage room, easy to haul. Easy loading. Can run all over Fork on a 3 day trip and never have to add gas from the first days fill up.

Now the downside, if your buying a new boat go with the glass boats. You will not hold the pt190 in the wind, its light and the deck sets way up out of the water. The pt190 is suseptable of welds cracking because its the bigger boat. You can run it in rough water and it does ok but its not a fiberglass boat, dont expect it to be.

Bought mine brand new and I enjoy it, If i had it to do over i would have bought a fiberglass instead, maybe even a used team boat or something to that nature.

I have a 2007 Bass Tracker PT 190 TX (pictured) with a 90 HP Mercury Optimax. I love it. I find there is more fishing/standing room on my boat than many 18-20 foot big brand name fiberglass boats I've been on before.

The Pros:
* Can go deep into cover without much worry of messing up boat.
* Better Price point
* Almost indestructable (rammed into a dock full force one of the first days I got it and barely a scratch- glass boat would've been $$ repairs).
* Pretty awesome ride even in moderate chop.
* Incredible fuel efficiency (I only fill 2-3 gallons of gas for each trip!)

The Cons:
* Blown around like a top with any wind 15 MPH+
* Tough to 'de-launch' and drive onto the trailer when it's windy (back end fish tails).
* When fishing with a partner or two, it's a pain because if you both are flipping on same side of boat, the boat tilts easy lol. * Very light boat so you have to strategize about balancing it out when walking around.

Mine runs 41-42 MPH WOT with just me in it and slim gear. If I have a lot of gear or a partner in boat I'm about 38-39 MPH. Running at about 5,000 RPMs I'm right about 35-36 MPH and that seems ideal for gas mileage and not putting a load on the engine.

At the very least, this thread might win the award for the longest title.

My issue is I want the bigger boat for taking the kids out on but I don't want to pay 40k for a boat. I've fished off of older and smaller Trackers. They do get blown around and they definitely aren't as stable as a fiberglass boat. I'm thinking the bigger boat will be more stable than the aluminum boats I've fished off of. Is that a safe assumption?

The Nitro Z7 isn't too much more. Would that be an infinitely better choice?

Yes the z7 would be a very very better choice

bump