I would think that the reasoning behind this is that people with small
crafts are tired of paying slip fees for something mostly portable.
That's what I like about my 23'r. I can still trailer it around, and
not be stuck with slip fees and not knowing that my boat was being
watched or not. And/or the marina is finding that they can pull in
much more revenue by accomodating larger crafts with minor expansion
expense. Especially if they charge by the foot of the boat.

wrote:
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:34:13 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:

On Nov 28, 3:22?am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:12:40 -0800, "Calif Bill"

wrote:
The 20% or so of the boaters in the
country, the fuel costs of getting the fishing hole with the 12-16' fishing
boat is going to be 10-20x the fuel costs for a day of fishing.

I've had this discussion with a number of tournament types over the
past couple of weeks and their overall approach to the upcoming
southern season and next summer.

A lot of guys are going to double up and team fish.

It would make sense that people will change some of their customary
boating practices to adapt to the higher fuel costs, but I still
predict that few people who currently boat will be driven out of the
pastime soley because gas or diesel is up a couple of dollars per
gallon.

In my area, it was very apparent this past season that the bulk of
fishing boats from 16 to 20 feet were absent from slips. The parking
lots at area ramps were far more crowded than in the past. Seems
pretty obvious what happened.

Some marinas are responding by removing the smaller slips and
replacing them with new accomodations for larger boats.