I would have thrown down on that graph in a heartbeat! While some of those look longer, there are a lot of big round returns also. Catfish heads show round returns - correct? Side scan people... am I looking at the right things?
Pontoon... I really wanted a big aluminum center console to fish and hunt with, but wife wanted pontoon to relax and play with the kids. My 18' bass tracker was just not big enough to be safe on Cedar Creek, and we started looking two years ago. Boats were hard to find, but we took our time, and found what we thought we wanted. Bought the used low hours 24' tritoon with the 200 SHO engine, and I have been really happy with it overall. Lot of room, good storage, and fishes much better than I expected. Not a dedicated center console, but works well, and wife is happy. Mine has the two rear fishing seats, and I was not sure I would like that or not. Turns out that for drifting for blues, it works great. We have the ski bar and I made a rod holder from aluminum angle, and can put it on and off fairly easy. Can still use the ski bar with rod holder there, so I leave it on most of the time. See picture.
I have three drift socks - Cabela's 56" models. I have fished 20 mph and big rollers, and with rope out on the socks, keep it down in the .5-.6 range. Gust will move it some, but manageable. I have a 36 volt Motor Guide with spot lock, and it holds it well in the wind, for crappie fishing, etc. I can put 5 or 6 people in the boat - rated for 12 I think, and have lot of room. Can only get about 3 back at the back safely with rods with fish on at one time, but normally we just take turns reeling in fish, and usually not more than one fish at a time. I have put a few rod holders around the boat, and for spring anchor fishing, plenty of room.
I like to crappie fish, but did not do much of that last year, due to chasing blues. I just bought a live scope setup, and plan to do a little more crappie, along with the blues, this year. Thinking I am going to build a mobile setup so I can use is at front, back or console. Or in my 16' flat bottom if I want to... have a couple of places real shallow I like to go to. But pontoon has been really nice for crappie fishing what little I have done with it, other than dock shooting. Not great for that. I can spot lock on upwind side of brush piles and fish off back very comfortable - 3 people. I would love to have had fishing seats at the front and back, but did not find anything like that when we were looking, that the wife was interested in. She likes big couch seats to lay out on... lol.
Overall I would do the Tritoon again. Make sure to find a tritoon, not just a pontoon. Handles the rough water much better!
You are welcome to come down to Cedar Creek and fish with me if you want to spend a little time on a toon, and see what you think. Cant promise we will catch anything, but we will try! I do not have a trailer for my tritoon... bought it from a guy that had it delivered to him new on Livingston. I had it delivered to me at Cedar Creek. Boat has only seen two lakes so far. I will eventually find a trailer for it, but just keep it in my dock at Cedar Creek for now.