BRUTALLY HONEST 1 Year Review of My ALUMINUM BASS Boat (Ranger RT188) || Is It JUNK??

[Music] what's up everybody welcome back to another episode of gun fish tv i want to thank you for tuning in to my channel today i appreciate it very much if you're not already subscribed be sure to hit that subscribe button and hit the notification bell as well because youtube has not been sending out notifications here recently for some reason but if you're new to the channel i'm going to be going over my 2020 ranger rt188 now i've had this boat for a little over a year now and actually to give you a little back story on it last year i drove all the way down to florida last august me and my wife went down there and we picked this up and i ended up getting a really good deal on it uh so what happened was the the guy that had it before me he had a 2014 model he had some hull issues and ranger ended up coming back taking it to the plant and they gave him a brand new 20 20 hole so before he got the boat back he ended up ordering a fiberglass boat and once he got this he he put it for sale and actually had it at a dealer aquatech marine that i went down and bought it from so that's just a little back story on the boat but i've had it for a year now and i just wanted to go over you know what i like about it if i've had any issues with it i wanted to let you all know and just overall how much i like the boat so i'm going to go over the exterior pretty much and what i'm going to start with is just talking about the paint okay now my tracker that i had before this was like a powder coated paint and this is actually painted like an automotive vehicle so honestly the paint job on it it looks better but it actually chips a lot easier because this is like a thinner clear coat tight paint like you would find on a vehicle but it does have a good metal coat uh finish to it and i mean it it looks good and overall i haven't had any issues with the hole whatsoever some people and like i said the guy before me that had this set of 2014 he did have hull issues but i have not had any and i've beat this boat pretty good i put a lot of time in it on the water and no issues so far i do have a dent in the front of it where i actually hit a log a floating log and at the time i hit it i thought i would maybe have knocked a hole in it but it actually held up very well it did dent just a little bit but i was very surprised that it handled it the way it did so overall no issues with the hull whatsoever you know everything's done good i've heard some people have had issues with their holes and they've kind of messaged me and asked me have i had any and honestly i haven't like i said as far as the exterior the only thing that i would say would be the paint job it is definitely thinner and it you know it does chip fairly easy so you know when i bought the boat it had an 80 pound thrust 4 tracks on it which i've not changed and then i also had the 2014 mercury pro xs on it and when i bought it had like 230 hours on it and i put a ton of hours on it since i've had it but the motor has been flawless i haven't had any issues with it and i think i've put about i i don't know my hour meter broke but i know i've ran it for over 1500 miles on the water so no issues with it and i'm satisfied with that so far all right so one thing that i will say is the trailer is a 2014 model as well and if you come over here i can kind of show you what i'm talking about this trailer is the c-channel design it was made by ranger and honestly it was not built for back roads i've had issues with actually the back of the trailer bending inward and it originally came with like side bunks on it and i actually cut those off because they were actually bending in and touching my boat and basically rubbing the paint but pretty much from right in front of the fender back to the tail light the frame of the trailer has actually bent inward so it's actually kind of like the overall frame of the trailer has bent some and i've actually i'm part of a ranger facebook group and actually several people have told me that they've had this issue with their trailers as well so at some point i'm probably gonna have to end up getting a trailer it's doing okay for right now but just over time you know even the fender right here and you can see it's actually like bent upwards a little bit um so the trailer definitely i would say was a weak point of the whole boat package you know highway use i would think it would be fine but like i said the newer trailers are made differently and i know that they have this part right here it actually extends all the way back which was like a reinforcement for the trailer so i think they did kind of fix that issue but with my particular trailer you know i i have that issue so that's one thing that on this uh trailer itself which like i said is a 2014 it definitely could have been done a little bit better but i think they fixed it i think they fixed it in 2018 actually so um and but like i said this boat is a 20 20. now the 2021s are actually built a little bit different they're actually built right in the tracker facility and the holes are built differently than what this one is so i'm not real sure what the differences is i think the keel is a little bit different i think the back has like a step down transom kind of but you know my boats are 20 20 and it was kind of the last ones built with this particular hull so going around the boat right here when i bought it it had the talon on it now this is something that i absolutely love i did not think that i was really gonna like it when i got it i'd even considered taking it off actually when i bought the boat but i left it on here and actually i will never have a boat without one again i actually want to put another one on here but this is a eight foot talon and it is awesome you know fishing rivers like i do i fish rivers all the time and i put it down all the time when i'm fishing shallow water to re-tie you know if i catch a fish or whatever and i actually have a remote fort on my dashboard and i have one up front so if i'm up front i can just hit the button to drop it down or pick it up or if i'm at uh you know at the steering wheel driving at the console i can just hit it put it up and down as well so it's really nice when you're docking the boat you know or you know fishing whatever a lot of scenarios this bad boy comes in handy and like i said it has a 2014 mercury pro xs on it it's a 115 and i it runs i the highest i've had this boat i had a 21 pitch laser 2 on it which i still have but i got it to 48 and a half one time that was the fastest that i've ever got this boat to run and i actually hit a floating log with it and i think it bent the blade or something and it won't run quite as fast now but i have a 20 pitch on it now which i run with two people and it's double cup and i can run about 46 miles per hour by myself or with somebody else like it doesn't even matter it runs like 46 mile per hour fully loaded down i got all kinds of tackle ton of weight in this boat because i don't spare on my tackle in it and you know 46 so that's not bad it's fast enough for me so after i bought the boat i got a four inch manual that's advanced manual jack plate put on here and i've messed with it put it all different up and down and i finally got it right where i want it um so i got that put on and you know it it helped some but you know it probably didn't help enough the way it really made a difference an upgrade that i may definitely do in the future which i would recommend if you don't have one and you're going to put a jack plate on i would recommend definitely going ahead and putting a hydraulic jack plate on 100 go ahead get a hydraulic jack plate don't they're like a thousand bucks this manual was like 250 i would recommend spending the money and going ahead and getting a hydraulic jack plate that way you have the controls right at your steering wheel you can raise the motor up and down especially like if you're in shallow water like i fish a lot you can raise the motor and all and you can adjust it on the fly so it's definitely the way to go so that's one thing i did to it that i definitely would if if i went back or if i'm gonna do it again i would definitely get a hydraulic jack plate so we're gonna get right and get into the boat i think i've went over everything on the exterior as far as i can think of and like i said you know the boat as far as handling and everything has been really good the fit finish everything's been really good no complaints on it as far as that goes so we're going to jump on the inside i'm going to show you the upgrades that i've made to it since i have bought it some different things i've done to it that have definitely helped the fishability of it as also like fishing tournaments and stuff and you know we'll kind of go from there so we're going to go ahead and jump in the boat all right so we're right here at the front of the boat and like i was saying earlier when i bought the boat it had an 80 pound minn kota 4 tracks on it 80 pound thrust i still have that same trolling motor on here i do not have an ultrex with spot lock or anything like that so definitely if i was to make another upgrade to this boat on my next upgrade and it maybe next year i don't know when i'm going to do it but an ultrex would probably be my next upgrade just for the sole purpose of having spot lock so you know if you don't know what spot lock is that's where you can hit the anchor feature on the trolling motor pedal and it uses gps coordinates and it keeps your boat right there and you can just walk all on the boat everywhere and it keeps you right there so i don't have that there's a lot of times when i kind of wish that i did fishing main lake points or even fishing in current catching a fish culling or something like that if it's too deep to drop my shallow water anchor my talon and you know it'll be really nice to have that feature so if i was going to do an another upgrade on my next upgrade that's what it would be but right now the 80 pound thrust 4 tracks is doing fine but also something and this is mainly because i fish a lot of rivers and a lot of current is there have been situations where i definitely could use a higher pound thrust trolling motor like a 36 volt 101 pound thrust or 112 pound thrust some people might think that's overkill but when you're fishing rivers that are running three four mile per hour you need as much trolling motor as you can possibly get on the front of a boat so if i do upgrade i will probably actually go with a 36 volt but right now 80 pound thrust is getting it done i don't have any issues with it and the the motor guy trolling motor has has done perfect so i have also added up front this is a 93 sv garmin so it's a 9 inch screen has down imaging side imaging of course 2d 2d imaging and mapping i do not have live scope that will be something maybe in the future uh that i would get but right now i'm i'm fine without it but that's what everybody's getting nowadays but i have a 93 sv mounted up front and i have this on a scotty shorty mount but honestly i've been in some pretty rough stuff and i've actually had this mount lay down and lay over it's a little wobbly i'm not gonna lie it's fine if you're not in rough water but i definitely need to upgrade to some sort of steel or metal you know bracket i don't really like the ones that go over the trolling motor pedal like most people have i don't really like them for some reason i like it to just be sitting off to the side right here but i want to get i know they make some mounts i think they're called gorilla mounts or something but they're like really solid so i that's what i'm going to get one of those soon but i just haven't yet but anyway that that's what i have up front gorman 93 sv and then right here i have my talon remote right here so if i'm fishing i can drop my talon up and down from right here and that's worked out really well so the the trolling motor tray that came in the boat that was standard with the boat and you know pretty much up front that's pretty much all that i've done i have the the standard strap downs for the rods you know i may upgrade those to like a boat buckle type deal i know on these boats it is enough room in here where you can put the retractable boat buckle and pull it over i have a couple buddies that actually have this boat and they have those on on them and they are really nice so that might be something i would go to but right now they're doing okay so that's pretty much everything at the front of the boat we're gonna move back now i'm gonna show you my compartments and how i store my stuff real quick and just kind of show you the size and then also what i did uh as far as the lids are concerned to help with the lids not falling down so we're gonna we're gonna jump into this lid right here now when you buy these boats they do not come with hydraulic lifts on the lids i bought these off amazon and i actually put them on there they're 10 inch hydraulic lift arms and they work perfect they are so nice up and down you know it'll hold it and i love it it's one of the one of the best thing as small as it is is literally one of the best things that i've done to this boat so in here this is where i keep all of my soft plastics and my spinner baits is in this particular one and i have my stuff basically in like tupperware it's like these are my flukes and this one i have my crawls you know i have another one that has my finesse stuff in it but that's how i store my plastics is in these tupperware type containers it keeps everything nice and neat your plastics stand up so they're not like in a plastic bag just all bundled up all crazy and all and then like right here i have my spinner baits i keep them and this is actually a worm binder but i actually keep my spinner baits in it it works out perfect so if you're looking for a way to organize your spinner baits i've been doing this for years and years it's a really good way to to keep them organized so keep my spinner baits in there then i have another tupperware as well that i have jigs in like like new stuff like stuff brand new in the package buzzbaits uh some crank baits top waters and stuff that i don't want to take out of the package and put them in my uh in my 3700 plano boxes quite yet and i want to keep them in the pack new frog stuff like that so i have another one and then i also have a small trash can in here it's a very short plastic trash can and it fits right in the corner so just when i have trash i can just throw it in there and um or if you watch my channel a lot you know i throw cans in my live well so a lot of people say stuff about that i think it's kind of funny but over here on this side same deal i got the hydraulic lift arm and this is like i said 10 inch hydraulic lift arm off amazon in here i have all my line i have more line i got a ton of line um i got my snack box right here i got rain suit my tie up rope and then also i have my spare prop in this compartment right here as well these compartments on this on this boat are really big you know they go from right here and they go all the way back to the very back of the front deck right here so they go all the way back so it's a lot of storage room that these boats have in them so like i said i could fit a lot more in them but you know i have everything i need and then some basically so that's what's in that compartment now in this one this is the rod locker the center the center storage one is the rod locker so i'm gonna let my wife back up on the back deck real quick and we'll get into this one so this is the rod locker got all my rods in there well not all of them obviously i have a bunch on the on the deck as well but so my rods and then i have my 3 700 boxes that i have all my lures in along the side it has this divider right here that kind of keeps everything separated so i have that there and then i have some other stuff in here as well like real lube you know some extra scissors pliers my my coloring beam is in here you know different stuff like that sharpies my hooks and everything but one thing that i did do is right here these like binder clips right here basically like you get them from you can get them from anywhere but i took self-tapping screws and actually run these binder clips up there so i can take my lures or my soft plastics and if i'm fishing a tournament and i know that i'm going to be using a particular one that day i can just take it put it up there and then that way if i'm fishing the tournament they're like very easy to access so that's something that's very cheap but something you might want to consider if you fish tournaments or if you just fun fish or whatever it just helps find exactly what you think you might be using for that particular day and then of course it came with scissor holders you know up there on the front uh trolling motor tray and then also right here scissors and pliers so i have have those and these are basically so the people in the back of the whoever's fishing with me can can get a pair of pliers or whatever if they don't have them my net transporting and stuff i just leave that right in the bottom right there it's not going to go anywhere and then also like right here on the side right beside the seat it has a very small slot and that is where i keep my you know my measuring board for my tournaments and stuff right there so that just like drops down like perfectly right there this side has a little bit more room and i keep my scale and then like my fish grippers and stuff right here i just kind of throw them down on the side so basically that's kind of the front of the boat now we're going to move to basically the dash so we're going to move right here to the dash and i'm going to go over what i've done there and then we're going to move to the back of the boat all right so sitting down right here i will go over something that i really like about this boat that on my tracker i was not able to do i'm a pretty tall guy i'm almost six one or i used to be six one i might have shrunk a little bit but i can extend my legs all the way out all the way out that is like the nicest thing ever so when i'm running down the river down the lake i can put my legs all the way out and i can sit back and i can cruise in my tracker i had to sit like this had my head and my legs all cocked i was kind of crammed up steering wheel was real close and as much as i loved that boat that was one thing that i didn't really care for was the fact that i had to have my legs so close you know to me when i was running and i make a lot of long runs so it got uncomfortable sometimes but as far as the dash and as far as everything here you know hydraulic steering hydraulic steering's really nice i added a garmin 93 sv right here at the dash on the dashboard as well and it came with a five inch lowrance in the dash like flush mount you know the guy that had it didn't have any spectacular electronics on it so i made a i took some aluminum plate and i made a plate to cover that hole and then this is a bass pro bracket right here that i bought and i mounted it through that aluminum plate and she's good and solid she's rock solid i've been through a lot of rough water haven't had any issues with it whatsoever it does have an hour meter on it which did quit working i need to put another one on here and then it has a water pressure gauge which the guy i bought it from actually got put in there and then trim gauge you know mile per hour which the rpm and mile prior which is speedometer is always off on these boats so you got to go by gps you know i got my uh talon remote right here on the dash so i can push it up and down and then i have my old lowrance hook 7 right here which is not even hooked to a transducer whatsoever it only has power running to it because i run my map on it and i have all my old waypoints on it and i did not want to lose my hundreds and hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of waypoints from having this unit for such a long time i did not want to lose them so i have that mounted right here on the side so you know aerator navigation lights bilge pump it does have automatic bilge pump this boat does and it's got a little horn which if i touch it it's not going to beep because i have my power off right now because i have a external power switch but i really like the dash it's big it's comfortable i can extend my legs one thing i don't like is the windshield there's literally no windshield whatsoever and if anybody owns this boat they will know exactly what i'm talking about you pick the trolling motor up and you go run you hammer down and you go running down the river lake literally water off that trolling motor is hitting you in the face constantly and that's one thing that's kind of aggravating um but if it had a dash that was a little higher or a windshield that was a little higher it would block that from happening so that's one thing that i don't like about it but i mean that's very minor but when it's cold you know water splashing on your face isn't the best thing ever so you know overall you know and then right here i have my live well controls right here empty recirc auto all that if you buy this boat and you're wondering how the live well control works i have another video on my channel that goes over that so just search for ranger live well control and you will find that video so 12 volt outlet right there i use that when i'm running my dash gopro and overall that's it you know as far as the dash goes so no real complaints on it just the windshield so that's one thing that i would definitely would like to see would be a bigger windshield but i know in the 2021 models they're exactly the same they have not changed it so all right we're gonna work to the back of the boat and then we'll finish up the video all right so now we're gonna start with the seats and move on back so basically the seats i really really like the seats the seats on the boat are very very nice they're very comfortable and i have to say that i really really really do like them i haven't had any issues with the stitching anything like that now i do keep my boat under a cover under a carport at all times i do not leave it in the sun the only time it's in the sun is when i'm fishing that's one thing if you own a boat you cannot invest your money in a boat and just leave it sitting in the sun i can't believe people do it whatever but i just i can't do it personally so invest in a cover to like 100 bucks on amazon so just just get one but anyway the seats have held up very well and then also right here i bought this console last week i think somewhere in there i got it last week and i got this off bass pro and it was only 90 bucks and i actually really really like this thing um you know it it has drink holders you know it has a little compartment here you know your phone or whatever and then also this front opens up i got my keys in there you know when i'm fishing i throw my cell phone in there my wallet whatever and i mean she snaps down it snaps down tight and it is not gonna blow open it goes right on here with four screws this boat when i did buy it had a center seat in it and i took that out so this console i really really like it like i said 90 bucks off bass pro you absolutely cannot beat it so under the seats under the seats is storage now under here i have you know my life jackets i have you know my fishing gloves my throwable device stuff like that and then also on this side this seat comes up i have this is my cover for my uh my depth finder right there but i have tools first aid kit you know some hand wipes my prop wrench just stuff like that and this is actually waterproof under these seats is waterproof has a little high lip and also something else i want to bring up too is my compartments i fished in a lot of heavy rain and i've had no issues with water getting in my compartments whatsoever some people have said they've had problems with it personally i have not so no issues with that so under the seat tons of storage under there for your stuff i really really like the storage that it has under the seats so now we'll get to the live well so it has a big live well on it i cannot remember how many gallons it is but it's very deep it can handle some really big fish uh you know i've had one up eight pounds or bigger in there on one side and absolutely no problem one thing i did do that was pretty cool and that has been really nice these are actually just cabinet handles these are cabinet handles and i put them up there to hold my colon be my coal floats right there not my coloring beam my cold floats and you know that's worked out really nice they were like two bucks put them on there with self-tapping screws and boom there you go i mean they're up there fishing a tournament you know you raise it up and they're right there so this is the back compartment you know where you have your gas tank it has a 22 gallon gas tank now to a lot of people 22 gallon gas tank is an absolute gracious plenty well i make really long runs and i've almost run this thing out of gas more than once fishing tournaments i make 80 90 mile runs in tournaments and i can run that far but every time on the back of my mind i'm thinking about my fuels so i kind of wish it had like a 28 gallon tank somewhere in there but it has a 22 gallon tank that's enough but i kind of wish it had a little bit bigger but for most people that's fine so i got my weigh bag back here i did the original battery charger did go out on it so i did put in a minn kota 30 amp three bank charger in here that was pretty easy to do so i got that in here and then i have three 27 series interstate these are efb batteries that's enhanced fluid batteries and they perform like an agm and they're very good batteries i've actually not had any issues whatsoever and i've fished a couple times i fished two days in a row without charging them in the wind and i've not had any issues with them whatsoever so very good batteries so you might want to go check them out because they are uh they're pretty good all right so one thing as far as talking about my depth finders i did not mention it earlier but i have separate wires ran to my depth finders and that's so you don't have interference while you're using them you do not want to run them off of your main you know your circuit panel that's in the dash of these boats or up front because you will end up having interference so you want to run you know a separate wire for both your units now i will admit it is an absolute pain it is a pain so basically to run your transducer you have to come in through here and it's a tube that goes up to the front and then for the wires you have one that's all the way down there in the very bottom corner and it is crammed full of wires you cannot hardly get anything through it the way i did it was i actually bought some clothes wire clothes hanger wire like you would put on a you know clothes hanger outside on a clothesline pole and that's pretty stiff and i was able to ride that through and get it up there but it literally took me hours it it is i would probably take it to somebody if i had to do it again i'm not gonna lie because it is is a job but you know if that's how you do it i would definitely recommend doing it that way but i will forewarn you it is a lot of work and you might have to take some breaks so you don't destroy something because it is pretty aggravating but as far as the separate wiring i also have a separate switch ran i ran a separate switch right here for my depth finders running back to my battery and then i have the main circuit breaker which came on the boat by itself so when i cut this toggle switch on that powers on my two units so that's pretty much what i got going on back here in the back you know nothing real crazy like i said it does have an automatic bilge pump back here manual or automatic which is really nice and that's something else too is i actually did put this boat in one time without my plug in i kind of forgot to put it in which it's only the second time i've ever done that but literally the boat was floating fine the bilge pump didn't even come on or anything until i put the boat in reverse when i put the boat in reverse and like it pushed water in that's when the bilge pump come on and i knew something was going on but literally the boat had been in the water for like over 10 minutes and it didn't even have enough water in it i looked in the back and it wasn't even hauling any water in it so these boats do float pretty good they got a lot of floatation in them so the only thing left basically is the very back side compartment so this is just a compartment this is a box that it has a drain in it the on this side i have the absolute essentials you need some toilet paper i got a peroxide in here sunscreen hand sanitizer bug spray which you absolutely need and i need to put on right now because i'm getting eat slam up and i got some hand soap band-aids just different stuff electric tape some spare bulbs a couple spare reels thrown down in there some extra ride tips so that's kind of a an essentials type deal right there but that's a fairly waterproof compartment as well i have gotten a little teeny bit of water in that one for some reason but it does have a drain in it so it does drain out and then the one on the opposite side it's exactly the same and on that side i just have like windex and spray cleaner for cleaning the boat and then some rags that's really all and my fire extinguisher my fire extinguisher is on that side but other than that that's it you know the boat does have a cup holder here it has a cup holder up front and then now that i put the center console in here i have cup holders right here so basically overall i would give the boat a nine out of a ten so not bad not bad and this is i'm about a year and a little over a month now in so about a year and a month i've had this boat and i do use my boat more than a lot of people so i've had it in some really really rough stuff i've actually had it in some four footers and it handled it really really well it absolutely surprised me in the way it handled big water now we'll say that your back will kill you and it will beat the absolute dog crap out of you because it is an aluminum boat so it's not made for that kind of stuff but it will handle it like i said it's rough but it will handle it so the boat's been flawless i really like it the carpets held up well the seats everything on the interior i haven't had any issues whatsoever so you know like i said i'm only speaking for 20 20 model i'm not really speaking for the new 2021s but as far as my boat is concerned 2020 one-year review i absolutely love it i would recommend if you're looking for an aluminum boat looking into one there's a lot of other good choices out there as well and i may end up in something else some years down the line but i'm very satisfied with the boat so if you're in the market for one definitely check them out for sure but like i said weigh your options and look at some other stuff as well so i hope you all enjoyed this video if you did leave a like comment down below and i really appreciate y'all watching and i'll see you next time on gun fish tv

Channel: GunnFishTV

Views: 14,251

Rating: 4.9024391 out of 5

Keywords: bass fishing, fishing, catfish, gar, gar fishing, bowfishing, saltwater, boat, bass, catfishing, topwater, river, lake

Id: gw_RlF7RprE

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 07 2021