Reviving a 2000 28 TE

[LISal]

Norsesman did you ever end up doing the bait tank? I am looking into some options for live well.. i currently run a 22ft cuddy and have a 55 gallon drum i cut down to about 35 gallons and it works perfect, besides the work out we get manually changing the water and fish getting out at times especially when they are frisky. Now with a real boat now manually keeping bait alive is not an option. Without even having t tops you can imagine my trips currently are to the point, no relaxing, get bait, run out and find fish, lcatch fish, come home when everything works out lol.. I have swim platform but am considering removing. I don't know if putting a tank on it is wise sense this is a weak spot for water intrusion. alot of stress on mounting bolt and with the smacking of following sees on platform i am going back and forth. Thinking with yearly inspection and maintenance i should be ok and the extra 2 feet is nice. Has anyone converted fish box into live well?? i would like to cut out the fish box and live well and replace with new tank with rounded corners.. huge job and will fish her first. once i get on water the jobs will prioritize them self. Norsesman I am also running to canyon and think the collapsible bladder may be the ticket for the extended runs when fish are 100 plus miles off.

[Norseman]

. Norsesman did you ever end up doing the bait tank?

Nah, no bait tank for me, don’t fish.
Using factory tank for storage and disabled the pump and the salt water washdown.

[Sisu22]

Tom do you have any pictures of the project?

[Pitou]

Im going to play with the bait tank a little longer before I give up - the corners on mine are radiused- I will have to change the 1/2" inlet port to at least 3/4" and upgrade the pump. I currently have no swimplate form and have way too many project that are of a higher priority before I build one so the bait tank change is down the road

Not sure where you are on the baitwell project, but wanting to add my experience. My 28's tank had a 3/4" intake hose for the raw water and a 750 gph pump along with radius corners. Baits swam fine and as long as bait numbers stayed to 18 or less for tinker to medium sized baits the survival rate was fine. The common baits in the northeast are mackeral and pollack.

[Tom Un]

The 3 W's (Wife , Weather & Work) had the boat projects on hold for a little while - finally was able to get another project completed over the weekend - I installed a tank monitor. I still have to calibrate it but my back, neck and knees are killing me - working below the deck is not fun.

Tom