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Greetings. I joined here after purchasing a 1996 Outrage 17 with a Johnson 115 Ocean Runner 2-stroke. It is my first Whaler, my first real boat. I bought the boat from Portside Yacht Brokers in Muskegon, MI. It was a Marina Baby for the last ten years and run in MN before that. It's never seen saltwater....yet.

I am blessed to live in Southwest Michigan.

90 min to Chicago
30 min to Lake Michigan
15 min to the St. Joe River -- this river has the largest stocked Salmon and Lake-run trout populations anywhere in the world! It is famous for its Spring and Summer-run Skamania Steelhead -- but Kings, cohos, and Brown Trout all make runs, with many of the trout lingering before and after. It also has fine numbers and quality of Walleye, and Smallmouth Bass.
20 min to a half dozen inland lakes for large and small mouth bass, walleyes, Northern Pike and panfish.

I have desired a Whaler for decades, and look forward to running it locally on our fantastic freshwater lakes and rivers here, along with the Great Lakes (Lakes Michigan and Erie mostly), and also plan on taking it to Florida and the East Coast in the future.

I took her out on Lake Erie last week the day after I bought it, and fished it in 2-5ft waves safely and comfortably for six hours, catching a mixed creel of Walleye, White Bass, Channel Catfish and of course Erie's infamous "junk" fish, the sheephead.

Other boats my size simply could not found in those seas, and even some larger ones weren't faring as well as my Whaler.

I've learned a lot from this site and learned much even before joining.