And this year, it has been raining, raining, and raining some more - and it is going to rain again today! Before it does I will cut some grass, and tackle the long anticipated initial review of the inside of my Ranger bass boat, sold to me from the excellent team down at Denver Marine!
This boat is only 17'6" long, but the designers at Ranger have stuffed a lot of storage into this boat. All of the storage compartments also come with composite lids just like the deck, which is fantastic - no deck rot, no lid rot, ever!
On the central cabinet door they even included a very handy ruler - note the nifty hydraulics on the door as well!
Not all of the lids have these, but the major one do. If you have a wet day, water can collect in the groove that you can see in the above photo, but the insides of the compartments have stayed very dry, even after heavy wave days and torrential downpours.
The Front of the Boat
This is where the main storage lies - the Ranger ice cooler, directly in front of the driver's windshield, a starboard storage locker, and a center and port rod and equipment lockers. The pictures above are of the center locker. Of the front lockers, all but the cooler have the hydraulic openers. If they should ever go bad, they are easily replaced.
The latches, I have to be honest, caused me much aggravation and more than one cuss word (which caused a mother and her young children to leave a nearby dock - I apologize, ma'am - I did not see you there). The latches really are very simple to adjust, but you will need a channel lock or another decent pair of pliers or a wrench.
To tighten or loosen the latch, simply move the nuts up and down the bolt shaft (don't laugh!). This raises and lowers the latch.
Be warned, you will have to make sure the area around the latch is clear of things for it to work properly - even a plastic bag will keep it from engaging! The interiors of the compartments are split between composite material and the all weather gray carpeting. In the top picture you can also see the handle side of the rod holders.
The center compartment will hold up to seven foot rods, the port side compartment 7'6". The front part of the holders are genius - I'm not sure when they started doing them like this, or who did it first, but whoever thought of this, I hope you got some money!
This is the front of the holder on the starboard compartment.
And, everything that I keep in there - 7 rods, the net, my big white cowboy hat and a whole pile of softbait packages that I really need to install in my tacklebox.
You can see how nicely the rods fit in there; I have 2 nice tackle boxes, and the equipment pictured here which I never have to carry into my house again! I just leave them in the boat, lock the storage compartments, and Robert's your mother's brother!
Center and Starboard compartments - the starboard compartment is currently holding 3 lifejackets, a floating cushion, the fire extinguisher (it is easily accessible on the side of the compartment) and a laptop with room to spare. The center compartment has a pile of stuff in it.
Note the step and the neat little storage area!
The Drivers Compartment and Seating
The boat is very comfortable, with easy instrumentation. It would be nice if someone would develop a seat for a boat that does not get to 130 degrees though (hint hint, Ranger engineers!).
The middle step section could have had storage there (I see a lot of boats that do) but this area gets stepped on constantly, so I can understand why Ranger chose not to put storage or a seat there. It is the perfect width to wedge a standard throwable cushion in as a spare seat when you have three people
They even supply grab handles for the passengers! (two of them)
Note the control for the livewell on the black panel next to the drivers seat.
OK, here is one thing I would like Ranger to do - add rod holders or some kind of universal mount to these things!
The black panels are decent spots for them Picture below, this is the passenger side - check out the nifty retractable strap! I hate putting holes in the fiberglass, but there are options. Putting mounts in the lids of a couple of the compartments would also be OK, but I am a bit less willing to do that than through the black plastic panels.
 |
| The slots for the passenger side rod holders, and on top - another spot to mount a rod holder! |
OK, folks, that is all for this week! I will continue the internal revue (and gripe about the shiny paint again) next post (hopefully by the middle of July) wherein we will cover the electronics, the trolling motor an the back deck, livewell and other exciting and (sometimes) aggravating options on my little Ranger 117Z!
Till then, good fishing, good weather and smooth roads!
