Can someone explain to me(? about express style boats)

[Carson Mac]

Why most express style boats in the 36-45ft range have full towers. Seems like to me I would want to have a tower I could fish from if I'm the captain. Kind of hard to jig or drop back from 30ft up. Any thoughts?

[Reveille75]

Very often my captain and myself are the only people on the boat who know what to do when we get a fish on. For me it is important for the captain to get to the deck quickly and throw in. While fighting a fish, he runs the show from the lower set of controls so he can better boss me around. The Gulf of Mexico is generally choppy and a tall tower wouldn't be comfortable anyway. Finally, I keep my boat in a lift and wouldn't clear my roof if it was too much taller. Lastly, I like to watch baits from up top and my old ass wouldn't do well climbing 35 feet.
David

[sportfishingusa]

towers are great for spotting fish, bird, etc...

they also give you a nicer view from the tower when looking into a trolling spread and watching whites, blues, stripes, and anything else come into the spread.

[dubb]

I like the idea of having the upper station directly on the hard top. You can still see and hand off rods from there. I also would make the upper station larger so other people could come and sit without bumping into each other. I realize this would not look as nice but it would be more functional. I think the 37 billfish is a good compromise.

[Carson Mac]

towers are great for spotting fish, bird, etc...

they also give you a nicer view from the tower when looking into a trolling spread and watching whites, blues, stripes, and anything else come into the spread.

Point taken and agree with you. But for most of the east coast tuna fishing is #1 game. having the captain fish rods from upstairs would seem to outway spotting birds or marlin, IMO.

[getreel]

An express with a full tuna tower is great to have. For the most part I am fishing from the lower station so I can quickly leave the helm to assist in the pit with leader and gaffing duties. An express layout lets you be in the game at the deck level of action. What I don’t like about the express is the view from the lower station looking forward while cruising. There is a lot of bow to look over without a lot of angle to see what is immediately in front of you. Plus you are looking through windshield and enclosure. The tower is great for visibility while running. When I leave at 0’dark thirty in the morning, I almost always run from the tower for the increased visibility. I am able to see and avoid the lobster pot minefields in the dark without any spot lights when running from up top. A marlin tower would also be okay; however, I don’t like the radar transmitter at ball level. The tower is also nice for crew to be spotting from. When canyon trolling, someone is almost always up there looking for life and watching the spread. I don’t fish rods from the tower, and I don’t imagine why anyone would. I do use it for spotting and run and gun fishing. But the anglers will be in the pit at the ready. Also, it is great when transiting in harbors as it allows you to look down into boats. I run out of RI and often cruise through Newport harbor for the sites….and there are some nice sites in the summer laying out on the boats in a tightly packed harbor.

PS-Want to buy a 38' express with full tower? I know of one that is listed.

[sportfishingusa]

Point taken and agree with you. But for most of the east coast tuna fishing is #1 game. having the captain fish rods from upstairs would seem to outway spotting birds or marlin, IMO.

I personally do not fish from one.. we run a 41 viking convertible and we run 2 bridge rods.. if they run off we hand them down and fight them..

i dont find it to be any more challenging other than you have more room for a few more rods from the launchers.

if you got the tower and no one on the bridge then bridge rods are pretty much obsolete unless you are running just teasers off of them.. but still.. someone has to be there to reel in the teasers when you have to back down on a marlin..

[Playnhooky]

Carson,

I mate on a 43' Viking Express boat with a tower.....the capt usually drives from up there when the weather permits and will be able to spot weed lines and such better than we can from deck level or the lower helm. Of course we never fish rods from up there, but I run up to 11 rods at times and all are either from the rocket launcher or the gunnel rod holders.......We don't tuna fish often as we fish out of Hatteras in the summer and there aren't many tuna around besides the black fins and then we fish for stripers in the fall / winter......When we do get into fish and the capt is in the tower I usually try to let the crew help out to get the teasers in or jig lines and they have always been more than happy to...it makes them feel like they are part of the whole experience! If we are fishing with an inexperienced crew or we are consistently getting covered up with fish then the capt comes down and helps out by driving at the lower helm and using auto pilot to help out in the pit!!! Both boats have their own ups and downs, but I love fishing from an express!!!

[Sea Draggin]

Why most express style boats in the 36-45ft range have full towers. Seems like to me I would want to have a tower I could fish from if I'm the captain. Kind of hard to jig or drop back from 30ft up. Any thoughts?

I have complained about the same thing many times. You can't communicate with the pit. Even on small express boats, they are about 4' being too high for everything.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Me, I wouldn't dream of owning a boat without a tuna tower...I absolutely love them for many reasons.

If I wanted to crank in fish instead of hunting for them and putting my clients on them I wouldn't ever get into the tuna tower, but I am the hunter and I can hunt a helluva lot better from way up there than I ever could on the lower helms. The Archer had full stations in the tower, on the bridge, and in the 'pit, so if I had to, like when we were running a big blue or black one I could come down and do my job from any of those positions.

But crank? No thanks! That's what my customers paid to do and among many other things, I could watch the lures and pitch baits get bit and then let the customers know what to do in case they didn't. And I learned an incredible number of things about how fish enter the spread and how they hit different lures and baits during the literally thousands of days running boats elsewhere and in Cabo that I spent watching the spreads while one of my crew drove and hunted.

We didn't allow passengers up in the tower for "insurance reasons" (to "insure" that nobody but crew got up there and bugged me). Like I said, my job was hunting, I took that very seriously and didn't need someone yakking at me and asking me all kinds of questions, dumb or not, and distracting me. I climbed into the tower at the beginning of the day and only came down and turned the wheel to one of my guys when we were headed back in.

Among many other things, if you happen to believe that there are many surface signs that will lead you to tuna (duh!), the view and visual reach from a tuna tower beats the hell out of the one from anywhere lower. Add a set or two of gyro binos and you will now see breaking fish and bird schools, boils, etc. much, much further away than you would ever have a prayer of seeing with the naked eye. Ditto on just about any other pelagic fish that swims. Gamefish leave lot's of "tracks" up top, you know?

And handing rods down? As far as I'm concerned (and yes, that's me only), that's what outriggers are for and even stingers. I always ran with two hard core professional mates, both of whom were licensed captains and they certainly didn't need my help hooking fish and handing them down from the bridge, forget about the tower. And we regularly ran from 8 to 12 baits with no sweat. I did have two teaser reels that ran off my stiffened riggers up in the tower so that the crew didn't have to mess with them.

I have many other reasons for loving tuna towers, but this is all that I have time to talk about here..."Everybody to their own", as the old lady said when she kissed the cow, but I wouldn't even begin to dream of owning a boat without a nice, tall tuna tower and that's all there is to it!

The pict is me on the hunt up in my "office in the sky".