Bassnreed,If in order for the boat to operate properly, I had to move my tackle to the rear storage…..Id buy a different boat!No no! I think youve got the exact same layout as 99% of most people. Tackle has to be up-front. The boat is just a tool to get us from “A” to “B” and to store the tackle we need…..and that tackle has got to be where we can get to it quickly and efficiently. I think your layout is just fine.Im sure there are others who will say place the mass toward the rear, light to the front, etc etc etc…..but for the typical bass fisherman, this is not a practical method of storage or use.On top of that, were not talking about alot of weight. Some would dispute even that……but I would say that if you weigh everything youve got in the front….not including rods, all of that stuff together weighs less than 150 pounds. I wrote on another thread that I weighed my lids on my PIV the other day after it rained and found that just my carpet on my boat soaked up more than 100 lbs of weight just from rain.Unless youre carrying something up front that is just heavy as heck…..that I dont know about, Id say youre just fine. If you were racing a boat, that would be different…..if youre bass fishing, I think youre fine. Id say as long as your spare prop or other dense items like that are in the rear, you have about as good of distribution of weight as youre going to get and still use the boat as it was intended.Id also play devils advocate and say, ok, lets say we placed all of our weight in exactly the “right” location for performance. How much more performance would we get?……I dont think it would make much difference to the average joe. To the guy looking for that extra 1.5 mph….it might matter…..but for everybody else, Id say it doesnt matter much.
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