What Is The Best Bay Boat On The Market? — Saltwater Experience Fishing

The yellowfin 24 foot bay boat can go to the flats, offshore, and everywhere in between

Harry Jones: I have been debating a 24 yellowfin as my next boat. I currently have an '02 2400v pathfinder my charter captain had to have as a bait boat. He used it ha handful of times. It was a 47' buddy davis out of bud n marys called the Finnster. He and I parted ways. What I am curious about is, is the 24 yellowfin that much better of a boat than everything else. Wylie has been great and I found one in South Carolina new that I could get shipped back to yf to get outfitted right. I am sure you get a break on the cost of the boat but to put it in perspective to get one loaded the way you do, is what my take was from my buddy davis. I still have a 33 world cat for offshore fishing but have been taking to the inshore backcountry stuff more lately. I primarily fish in Islamorada and Amelia island which is just north of Jacksonville. Thanks for your insight into the 24

Harry,

All good questions. I have fished out of just about all the bay boats on the market and I can say, with all confidence, that the 24 Yellowfin is the best one out there for what I do. I love the ride and can fish just about anywhere in the Keys with the boat on the right days.

You are smart to keep a true offshore boat if you really enjoy offshore fishing. A bay boat is just as the name implies...a bay boat. It can go offshore on the right days and it can fish where the technical poling skiffs go, but it excels at everything in between.

The Yellowfin 24 bay has 3 livewells that are each 50 gallons and most people have only 2 plumbed. I choose to have all 3 plumbed just in case I need or want it. This allows for an offshore load of bait in a small boat.

The Yellowfin is easily the finest rigged boat on the market. Open the console of any other boat and compare. The 24 is rigged the same as Yellowfin's 42. Anyone who has owned a boat in saltwater knows that things are going to go wrong. A great boat builder makes it super easy to diagnose and fix things that inevitably fail due to prolonged exposure to saltwater. Many companies keep their rigging and batteries in the transom where they get maximum salt exposure. Yellowfin keeps the rigging in the console and the trolling motor batteries in a separate compartment below the bow compartment. The trolling motor battery compartment is one of the nicest things about the 24. When you open the front hatch, you dont have to put your stuff on top of batteries, they are completely concealed.

The Yellowfin 24 Bay Boat with Mercury 300 Verado running through Florida Bay at sunset

The ride is second to none with the step hull and if you really wanted to go fast, this boat can be propped to get alot of speed. My going real fast days ended as I did my last redfish tournament so I opt for a prop that gets out of the hole fast and sacrifices top end but gives me a nice high ride.

Going shallow is important to me to be able to catch bait in the morning and to catch fish throughout the day. I have never put a ruler down on a flat white sand area to get an actual draft (the most abused statistic in all of boating) but I can tell you that I am able to catch 90% of the fish that I once fished for in the skiff. If the trolling motor prop is covered completely with water, I can comfortably fish and navigate through the area. Additionally, the boat does a great job of distributing the load and I don't see noticeable differences in draft with one versus 2 people on board like I do in the skiff.

Of course, the Yellowfin has all the accessories available that you might want for your style of fishing. It is the things like how a boat is rigged, how shallow it goes, how it rides and how the boat builder organizes batteries and storage options to make each day on the water a pleasure rather than a chore. I am quite confident that Yellowfin's 24 does all of these things as well or better than any other bay boat on the market.

Here is how I rigged up my brand new 24 which is the best one I have built yet.

Check it out by clicking here.

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All the best

-Tom Rowland