viking4

I live in SW PA, most lakes in my area are smaller aside from a few exceptions, speed is not that important for me as I do not make a living bass fishing. The boat will run 40 mph with just me in it and an empty livewell, I have a 75 merc on the back with a 3 blade black max aluminum prop.

I have a RT 178 and live in PA and here is my opinion. I can do anything on my boat that all the Bigger Fiberglass boats can with one exception, SPEED, it tops out around 40 miles per hour. On the contrary the Fiberglass guys Cannot do what I do in this boat for fear of damaging their hulls. I can fish HEAVY cover, I can Beach if I need to and I can also retrieve my $5 spinnerbait when I wrap it around a tree near the bank. The storage is dry and the layout is equal to or better than some fiberglass models of similar size. The Beam allows for a very stable platform to fish from, very comparable to Fiberglass stability when fishing. To sum this up I can fish everywhere I want to with this thing of which you cannot on a fiberglass hull. The two Big negatives of aluminum are as follows for me Speed: I can get anywhere I need to get to in a reasonable amount of time, there are no HUGE lakes in our area that the speed would make that much of a difference Big Water: I would not take this thing on BIG WATER, however the only BIG WATER in PA is Lake Erie which is not something I would choose to fish in any Bass Boat when the conditions get bad

I picked up a 2018 rt178 early this Spring after comparing and crawling over all the other competitor models in this range, I found this boat fit me the best for the style of fishing I do. I have fished out of it a lot so far and each time I am amazed at the stability of this boat. The layout is very fisherman friendly and functional in the sense that I can access all my tackle without having to move all my rods on the deck. The front deck is solid and is not tippy when standing near the gunnels. I had a mount installed on my console instead of cutting a hole in the dash and was able to install a fish finder and a couple ram mounts for my phone and other accessories. This boat does cost a little more but I believe the extra cost of it is worth it and if I had the choice to reconsider I would buy it again without a second thought.