Seek And You Shall Find

The Hewes in 2018

In my prior post, I discussed how I ended up buying the Hewes. After I bought it, but before beginning the transformation project, I spent some time on the Internet looking for photos of 1991 Hewes Bonefishers to use as a reference point and to get ideas for rigging it. So, It's amazing what you can find on the internet when doing a search. Searching for "1991 Hewes Bonefisher" I turned up a bunch of links and images to Bonefishers, both the 1991 version as well as many other model years. But what blew me away was finding several links and images for my specific boat posted by prior owners

The first one that I ran across was a link from 2015 to YouTube video for my Bonefisher. The video was posted by a boat consignment service listing the 1991 Hewes for $14,500 in St. Cloud, Florida. I didn't know it was my Bonefisher until I watched the first few seconds of the video but I immediately recognized the boat because of the motor, the trailer, the registration number (even though part of it was covered up), and the set up on the center console. In 2015, it had a Power Pole on the stern and the poling platform frame was black (it was replaced with a new chrome frame in 2021). Interestingly, the motor was listed as having only 95 hours of use, which was good to know - very low hours for a 2003 motor. 

 The next link I found was one posted in 2018 when the boat was up for sale again. 

2018

It was now in the Tampa area and still had the Power Pole and the black poling platform frame. It also looked like it had begun to show some cosmetic wear. According to the listing, the motor now had "estimated 250 hours" of use, still pretty low for a 2003 motor.

The other listing I found was the one I saw in October of 2021 that led me down to St. Marks, Florida to look at the boat. The boat had been bought by the owner and after using it for a while he decided to go through it and redo all the cosmetic issues, add SeaDeck to the floor/gunwales/hatches et cetera, and perform all needed maintenance issues. 

2020

Incredibly, he ran up a $6,500 bill at the marina to service the motor, trailer, and he also had a bunch of other mechanical/electrical things done to it, and still hadn't started on the cosmetics. When he got the quote for his SeaDeck plans, he decided to buy another boat and put this one up for sale. His loss was my gain because when I got it, it was perfect mechanically and ready to fish.

October 2021

Being the obsessive compulsive person that I am, and unable to resist another project, I decided to devote some time and effort to attend to the cosmetics and rig the boat up to my liking. Here we go....