I thought I would give my first impression of the XB21 2 seat Bassport Pro Elite.
This is a wall of text. TLDR I’m satisfied so far.
First I took an orientation trip to the dealer’s local lake. He spent about 30 min. going over details and features then we splashed it. There were roughly 20 wake boats in sight of the ramp. He planed off and drove about a mile at varying speeds avoiding wake boats as best he could. I jumped behind the wheel and headed for the closest wake boat and crossed his wake at roughly 40mph. I did the same to 3 more wake boats at speeds from 30 to 50mph on the way back to the ramp. I was approximately 100ft behind each boat at wake crossings. Dealer was not impressed. I was grinning ear to ear. The ride is fantastic. Less than 10 min on the lake. Dealer put the boat on the trailer and away I went.
I spent spare time for next two days rigging electronics. This is the easiest boat I’ve ever run wires in. Transducer, power, network, and accessory cables all pulled smoothly and secured in “trays”. First boat I’ve ever thought the designer/engineer wanted to make it easy on the owner/dealer to rig. I mounted the Garmin “black box” in front center box on starboard side. It could have been mounted just as easily on port side or either rod box. There are removable panels to separate the rod boxes and center storage box at the bow. This makes through bolting a breeze. No screws to grab pfd’s, rain gear or rod socks.
After being upside down in each box on the boat, the fit and finish is near perfect. The only fiberglass splinter came from a hole drilled for a rod tube. The “slam” latches All closed tight, released with a flick of a finger. Not one adjustment needed. I do think that two were installed backwards. It may be necessary by design but I will see if I can remove, turn 180, and reinstall. Cooler held a 20# bag of ice with a dozen drinks, room for about 8 more water bottles to spare at 10:00 am Saturday, 10:00pm Monday night and still have half the ice. The top cap is attached to hull with through bolts backed up with nylocks in multiple places. Better than screws backing out under rub rails in several brands I’ve seen. Only problem/issue I’ve found is there are 4 places where the yellow carpet glue is showing on the gel coat. I can clean this up in under an hour and am being picky to find a negative. I do think for the price of the boat and being the top trim level that all of the cup holders should be stainless like the nice one at the console instead of the 99 cent plastic ones elsewhere on the boat. I would have liked a cup holder at the bow and or a small day box by troller pedal. There is plenty of room for it and having dipping dye, scent, a couple bags of plastics, and your drink at your feet and out of the sun is nice. I don’t typically fish with a butt seat. I’m used to being right at the bow with how far forward Basscat puts there pedal. I like that there are two butt seat locations up front. I’m 6’4” and the back pedestal mount is still too close to the pedal for me. Had I been fishing main lake in today’s conditions, I would have been uneasy. I did not put it on spot lock in the nasty slop to see how it would handle waves coming over the bow. They would have come over on the cat, bug, and ranger today.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I am so ready to get the break in over with and set the boat up for tournaments and I’m excited. I’ve never seen another boat that has all storage compartments the same width. I’m going to order 9 more of the drop in tackle storage boxes. Boat came with 3. I want one for each possible position. I fish bass tournaments, crappie fish with family, Mom loves to fish for whites and hybrids. I want to set these boxes up for prefishing, tournament day, and various family trips. I can now move boxes that are pre set up from the boat to the fishing room with an efficiency I’ve never known. No more stacks of loose boxes, duffle bags stuffed full (unorganized), Bass Pro shopping bags full of plastics, cleaning boxes out for a family trip and finding the bait I needed last weekend under the top three layers of boxes. I am so impressed that a “racing” boat company came up with this system and feel cheated that the “fishing” boat companies didn’t.
I put an hour of break in on the motor today. Wind out of the north at 20+ gusting to 35. My home lake was “sporty” in some stretches.
Boat was empty, no gear, full cooler, 30 gal. Of fuel, and one wife. I forgot to fill livewells. I have over 2,000 days on this lake. I know every rough and smooth run in every wind. I’m still smiling! I loved the ride of my last boat and I knew how to get the most out of it. It was dry, smooth, and fast. The A boat is dry. I tried to get it wet and couldn’t. Straight into wind, with the wind, quartering and running the trough. Waves were shoulder high when I was on pad in trough of biggest water but you do sit low in this boat. It comes out of the hole with very little throttle in smooth water. It shoots out of the hole in rough water with more throttle and the waves timed right. It handles the water differently than the Cat. Hard to describe. You feel connected to the water, when I thought I needed to run the trim up or down the boat was doing what I wanted it to do before I made the adjustment. I need to load the boat for the next trip. I’m still smiling.
I dropped the trolling motor to see if the “dreaded potato chip” blown around in the wind affect was there. I would move the boat forward a couple of boat lengths straight into the wind and let off. The boat felt very similar to my cat in the time it took for the wind to move the A boat off track. It recovered nicely with the 80# minnkota. Same motor as the cat (I ran it as light as I could). I did not get lithium’s. 2 agm 31s and a optimum blue top starter. The A boat doesn’t feel tippy compared to my cat but it was empty so that may change some when loaded. It is definitely not a bug or ranger flat battle ship on the troller.
Boat is set up to carry 24 rods below deck. I usually carry 18 prefishing, 8 on deck, 10 below. I don’t anticipate having to make a change. Come tournament day, I’m usually down to 10 total. My partner usually carries 8 rods and I think he’s in trouble. We will see what we can work out.
The boat idles way faster than I’m used to. It was a chore to tie up to the courtesy dock. Multiple shifts F&R. The people on the dock must have and my wife did question if I had done this before. I wasn’t sure how deep to put the trailer and didn’t want my wife to load the boat after my dock embarrassment. I did not get it deep enough on first guess. Boat stopped with appx. 2-1/2’ to hit roller. A little throttle and it slid home. If I had missed it by that much in my old cat, I would have had to get in the truck and back up a 1’. May be the difference in a 3 & 4 blade prop. I don’t know.
The trailer has about 500 miles on it now. Mine is the channel frame. It pulls and stops fine. Brakes adjusted properly from factory. The old man step and grab post are perfect. Basscat’s is great, this one is perfect. The safety turnbuckle is a PITA. Wow, the plug is way up under this boat. Boat buckles are better on this trailer. Maybe they are all like this now but each click takes up less strap than my old ones. This lets you tighten the boat to the trailer better. My old ones took up so much at a time that you couldn’t get that next click and it would be slightly loose. I would have liked 15” or bigger rims to run tires other than marathons but that can be changed easily. I wore out lots of tires on a basscat trailer but never blew one. Everyone I know with the little tires has blown one or more.
If anyone is lurking and has questions, I’ll be glad to answer. There are 2 cats, 3 bugs, and 1 ranger in my family. I can give direct point by point comparisons.
Sorry for format. Written on phone. Couldn’t figure out cut & paste
This is a wall of text. TLDR I’m satisfied so far.
First I took an orientation trip to the dealer’s local lake. He spent about 30 min. going over details and features then we splashed it. There were roughly 20 wake boats in sight of the ramp. He planed off and drove about a mile at varying speeds avoiding wake boats as best he could. I jumped behind the wheel and headed for the closest wake boat and crossed his wake at roughly 40mph. I did the same to 3 more wake boats at speeds from 30 to 50mph on the way back to the ramp. I was approximately 100ft behind each boat at wake crossings. Dealer was not impressed. I was grinning ear to ear. The ride is fantastic. Less than 10 min on the lake. Dealer put the boat on the trailer and away I went.
I spent spare time for next two days rigging electronics. This is the easiest boat I’ve ever run wires in. Transducer, power, network, and accessory cables all pulled smoothly and secured in “trays”. First boat I’ve ever thought the designer/engineer wanted to make it easy on the owner/dealer to rig. I mounted the Garmin “black box” in front center box on starboard side. It could have been mounted just as easily on port side or either rod box. There are removable panels to separate the rod boxes and center storage box at the bow. This makes through bolting a breeze. No screws to grab pfd’s, rain gear or rod socks.
After being upside down in each box on the boat, the fit and finish is near perfect. The only fiberglass splinter came from a hole drilled for a rod tube. The “slam” latches All closed tight, released with a flick of a finger. Not one adjustment needed. I do think that two were installed backwards. It may be necessary by design but I will see if I can remove, turn 180, and reinstall. Cooler held a 20# bag of ice with a dozen drinks, room for about 8 more water bottles to spare at 10:00 am Saturday, 10:00pm Monday night and still have half the ice. The top cap is attached to hull with through bolts backed up with nylocks in multiple places. Better than screws backing out under rub rails in several brands I’ve seen. Only problem/issue I’ve found is there are 4 places where the yellow carpet glue is showing on the gel coat. I can clean this up in under an hour and am being picky to find a negative. I do think for the price of the boat and being the top trim level that all of the cup holders should be stainless like the nice one at the console instead of the 99 cent plastic ones elsewhere on the boat. I would have liked a cup holder at the bow and or a small day box by troller pedal. There is plenty of room for it and having dipping dye, scent, a couple bags of plastics, and your drink at your feet and out of the sun is nice. I don’t typically fish with a butt seat. I’m used to being right at the bow with how far forward Basscat puts there pedal. I like that there are two butt seat locations up front. I’m 6’4” and the back pedestal mount is still too close to the pedal for me. Had I been fishing main lake in today’s conditions, I would have been uneasy. I did not put it on spot lock in the nasty slop to see how it would handle waves coming over the bow. They would have come over on the cat, bug, and ranger today.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I am so ready to get the break in over with and set the boat up for tournaments and I’m excited. I’ve never seen another boat that has all storage compartments the same width. I’m going to order 9 more of the drop in tackle storage boxes. Boat came with 3. I want one for each possible position. I fish bass tournaments, crappie fish with family, Mom loves to fish for whites and hybrids. I want to set these boxes up for prefishing, tournament day, and various family trips. I can now move boxes that are pre set up from the boat to the fishing room with an efficiency I’ve never known. No more stacks of loose boxes, duffle bags stuffed full (unorganized), Bass Pro shopping bags full of plastics, cleaning boxes out for a family trip and finding the bait I needed last weekend under the top three layers of boxes. I am so impressed that a “racing” boat company came up with this system and feel cheated that the “fishing” boat companies didn’t.
I put an hour of break in on the motor today. Wind out of the north at 20+ gusting to 35. My home lake was “sporty” in some stretches.
Boat was empty, no gear, full cooler, 30 gal. Of fuel, and one wife. I forgot to fill livewells. I have over 2,000 days on this lake. I know every rough and smooth run in every wind. I’m still smiling! I loved the ride of my last boat and I knew how to get the most out of it. It was dry, smooth, and fast. The A boat is dry. I tried to get it wet and couldn’t. Straight into wind, with the wind, quartering and running the trough. Waves were shoulder high when I was on pad in trough of biggest water but you do sit low in this boat. It comes out of the hole with very little throttle in smooth water. It shoots out of the hole in rough water with more throttle and the waves timed right. It handles the water differently than the Cat. Hard to describe. You feel connected to the water, when I thought I needed to run the trim up or down the boat was doing what I wanted it to do before I made the adjustment. I need to load the boat for the next trip. I’m still smiling.
I dropped the trolling motor to see if the “dreaded potato chip” blown around in the wind affect was there. I would move the boat forward a couple of boat lengths straight into the wind and let off. The boat felt very similar to my cat in the time it took for the wind to move the A boat off track. It recovered nicely with the 80# minnkota. Same motor as the cat (I ran it as light as I could). I did not get lithium’s. 2 agm 31s and a optimum blue top starter. The A boat doesn’t feel tippy compared to my cat but it was empty so that may change some when loaded. It is definitely not a bug or ranger flat battle ship on the troller.
Boat is set up to carry 24 rods below deck. I usually carry 18 prefishing, 8 on deck, 10 below. I don’t anticipate having to make a change. Come tournament day, I’m usually down to 10 total. My partner usually carries 8 rods and I think he’s in trouble. We will see what we can work out.
The boat idles way faster than I’m used to. It was a chore to tie up to the courtesy dock. Multiple shifts F&R. The people on the dock must have and my wife did question if I had done this before. I wasn’t sure how deep to put the trailer and didn’t want my wife to load the boat after my dock embarrassment. I did not get it deep enough on first guess. Boat stopped with appx. 2-1/2’ to hit roller. A little throttle and it slid home. If I had missed it by that much in my old cat, I would have had to get in the truck and back up a 1’. May be the difference in a 3 & 4 blade prop. I don’t know.
The trailer has about 500 miles on it now. Mine is the channel frame. It pulls and stops fine. Brakes adjusted properly from factory. The old man step and grab post are perfect. Basscat’s is great, this one is perfect. The safety turnbuckle is a PITA. Wow, the plug is way up under this boat. Boat buckles are better on this trailer. Maybe they are all like this now but each click takes up less strap than my old ones. This lets you tighten the boat to the trailer better. My old ones took up so much at a time that you couldn’t get that next click and it would be slightly loose. I would have liked 15” or bigger rims to run tires other than marathons but that can be changed easily. I wore out lots of tires on a basscat trailer but never blew one. Everyone I know with the little tires has blown one or more.
If anyone is lurking and has questions, I’ll be glad to answer. There are 2 cats, 3 bugs, and 1 ranger in my family. I can give direct point by point comparisons.
Sorry for format. Written on phone. Couldn’t figure out cut & paste
