I honestly think the only advantage the Puma has over the PIV is a little bit of room on the front deck and the availability of a bigger engine. If you get in water thats too rough for the PIV you arent going to want to be out there in a Puma either. I bought the PIV because thats what I found in the price range I was looking for. Unless you are ordering a new boat you might have to look around for a boat. You wont find many used PIV boats and when you do happen on one it brings a good price. There is a reason for this.
I received a black lab puppy fifteen years ago as a birthday present from my wife the first year we were married. I lost my wife in an accident two years later. I lost my dog right before this Thankgiving. Its amazing how many feelings you can develop for a dog. It really hit me hard. Im just glad I didnt have to make the decision to put her down. I honestly dont know if I could have done it. She had got to the point that she couldnt get up and down without help. Even though my dog lived fifteen years and had a wonderful life it was still a bad ole deal. Sorry for your loss.
So BCB you are saying that the 38 series will fit its just a little harder to flush mount. Also who could I talk to about installing this unit in the dash. If it can be done Im pretty sure I can do it but Id like an idea of what I might run into as far as problems.
I just installed a HB 997 unit on my PIV. I do have some wiring experience from my days of racing cars but by no means am I a expert. The hard part is going to be running the transducer and power wires . If you have a factory installed unit already on your boat it will make it easier because you can tape something onto your existing wires and when you pull them out you can use whatever you taped to pull the new ones back through. Just be careful and take your time. Also, if you will pull the chrome vent off the back on the drivers side it gives you a place you can work from. The actual wiring is pretty straight foward. Again, if you try it just take your time and the directions are pretty good also. If you have someone you trust, a extra pair of hands can really come in handy. I guess it took us a couple of hours total. I bought the splitter cable and mounted a transducer in the sump. I took the time to really clean the bilge area and take the extra transducers out before installing the new one but you could just leave them. As for the head unit, what I did was to plate my dash and use the supplied bracket. It makes it a lot easier to remove if I want to take the unit off while traveling.
Hopefully all it will be is a loose line coming from the oil reservoir or something similar. Did you take the cowling off to look and see if you could tell where it was coming from.
Cant say enough good things about my experiences so far in dealing with Safe Harbor. Im expecting them to be moving on up the list in 2013.
Two kinds of fishermen. Those who have fallen out of the boat and those who are going to fall out. You can put me in the first group. Me and my dad were going in late one evening and they started schooling right beside the boat. I cut the big engine, jumped up on the front deck, lowered the TM, leaned back on my butt seat to make a cast and the butt seat spun sending me right out the back side of the boat. My dad has told me countless times that I was going to fall in and it finally happened. Nothing left to do but crawl back in and keep going. Never did catch any of those schooling fish either.
I think the fish decided there was too much going on in the area to keep schooling. I was still pretty young back then and just scooted back onto the front deck. He did say “I told you so”.
When the wind blows down the lake Barnett can get rough. I fished a regional out of the Madison Landing several years ago and it was like that. I saw electronics ripped off, lost trolling motors and even a boat with a cracked hull. A lot of guys didnt make the trip back across the second day. When they went under the 43 bridge they just turned around and went to Tommys and made arrangements to get their trucks brought to them. My PIV was new to me then but I learned just what kind of boat Basscat really does make. We made it back with no problems and were dry to boot.
I fished out of a 2006 PIV for several years before buying a Puma FTD this year. The main difference is power. My PIV was a 67-68 MPH boat loaded and my Puma is a 77-78 MPH rig loaded. Now, I dont run my boats hard but what I wanted was a boat that would cruise at 60-65. My Puma does that easily. To do that in my PIV I had to almost run it wide open. The PIV storage compartments are actually bigger but the Puma makes up by having storage under the seats. The Puma is a little more stable as far as a fishing platform is concerned but in reality there isnt much difference. As far as rough water goes the Puma is probably a little better but I can almost promise you one thing. If you get into trouble in a PIV there isnt going to be anybody in any 21 foot bassboat wanting to come out and help you regardless of brand. As stated above for me it all came back to power. My Puma leaves harder, loads better, cruises better, fishes better, is a little better in rough water and is a little bigger.
© 2026 Bass Cat Boats
