Fishcat Panther Pontoon Boat Review

Fishcat Panther Review

  Hello and thank you for reading. When I do my reviews, I try to do them in a way that is important to the reader and will give a few tech specs but try to focus on what those specs mean to the reader. I will start off with just a few of the specs. The Fishcat Panther is the baby brother of the Outcast PAC 9000, it weighs in at 67lbs and has a 400lb weight limit(no joke here, I could clone myself and fish it tandem style and I would just barely go over the limit). It has an aluminum frame and quad tube design and was designed to excel in windy conditions and shallow rivers. Retail is right at 1000$ which is about half of the Outcast PAC9000 1850$.

   When packing and storing my boat I do not follow the instructions of any of the boat companies. The side frames I leave connected to the pontoons and deflate the tubes and pull the front and the back of the tubes over the frames. I stack those first because they lay fairly flat and then set the rest of the frame and oars over the top. The pontoon boats do take up a lot of room but they are worth it when you hit the water. Putting the Panther together is a snap, unload the parts and set them where they should go and inflate the pontoons. Attach the seat frame and the back frame and your boat is together, very simple and quick to put together.

   In the water is where this boat excels. The boat sits very low and does not seem to get thrown around like the higher boats in the water. Last year when Cat and I went out on her birthday , the wind was blowing and we were getting thrown around so hard that I paddled to the bank, got out of my boat and pushed my old boat all the way back up the lake, not a good day. Rowing is much faster and more efficient in this boat than others I have tried. On our first trip with this boat and on the second night we were on the Delaney’s the wind calmed down for just a few minutes and I jumped into my boat and started rowing, in just a minute or two I looked up and saw that I had already rowed out about 100 yards. I had anchored down and was sitting there when the gusts started howling again, it did not pull me away from the spot I was anchored, very impressed. When heading back to shore I was going straight into 30+ mph winds and as you can guess by my writing, that I made it back, no problems. The next thing you should know about this boat is that it seems to have plenty of width in between the pontoons, I use a Hummingbird Fishing Buddy depth finder that attaches to the frame next to my seat. In my old boat, my outer thigh would get bruised from bumping it all day and I did not notice bumping it at all in this boat. Maybe the greatest feature of this boat is the quad tube design. I sold a boat to a friend last year and he told me about the fear he had of having a boat leak and him going under. It was not something I had ever really thought of before but certainly got me thinking after listening to him. With the quad tube design if one of the tubes failed, you would still have three to keep you safe.

  Now so you don’t think I am just a Fishcat homer, the next part is a real head scratcher. When I was younger, I was a huge fan of Stephen King and read a ton of his books. One of his books “It” had me on the edge of my seat from the first page till the last. The way the characters were brought to life and the horror they were dealing with had me totally biting my nails trying to finish the book and figure out what exactly they were up against. The last page came and “It” was a spider from outer space, are you FREAKEN kidding me, A spider from outer space? Okay, maybe I am being a little melodramatic but the anchoring system could have been done better. The pullies are fine but there is no real tie off for your rope. My last boat had a part mounted under my seat that the anchor rope went through, to set the anchor, all I had to do was close the tab on the rope and it  would lock, to free the rope, all I would have to do lift it up and the tab would open. A lot of times when on the water, I only want to move fifteen feet or more and all I would do was pull up the anchor a few feet(one handed) lock it in place, move to where I wanted to go and drop it. With the Fishcat system, you have to pull it up, use both hands and tie the rope off on the boat frame, sounds easy enough, try it when a 30mph wind is blowing you the other way, fifteen feet will be thirty in a hurry. My other small complaints are that this model does not come with a rod holder and the seat is not padded.

   Are these complaints deal breakers? not at all. One thing I have watched over the years is that there are 2 types of pontoon boaters, the ones that buy the 300$ Colorado Classic boats and fish them exactly the way it was purchased and the ones that buy something very nice and then see it as a lifelong project and are constantly tinkering with their toy. I added 2 rod holders and a padded seat and I think it cost me an extra 80 bucks. I will find someone smarter than myself (shouldn’t be too hard) to help me figure out a better anchor system. I would highly recommend both the Panther and the PAC9000 for anyone that fishes here in southern Colorado. One thing we can always count on is the wind and I don’t think there is a better boat out there that can handle the wind. These are LIFE LONG boats, not something you will be replacing in a few years. I chose the Panther over the PAC9000 because I only get to use my boat about 5-10 times a year. If you spend more than 30 days a year on the water, than spend the extra money and get the Outcast, it has a 10 year unconditional warranty. My friend Mark has had his for just over ten years and the only problem he has had was if he is not careful when closing off one of his tubes, it leaks a little. Mark fishes well over 30 days a year on that boat and for durability, when he goes from one lake to another up there, he just shoves it in the back of his truck and plops it out where ever he goes. These boats are made for fisherman and I think that is all I need to say. Thanks again for reading our blog, We hope this information is useful for you. One of our primary goals at The Drift Fly Shop is to never have a customer leave with anything that will not be loved by the Angler. Thanks again,Connell

I'm the one on the right with the fish :)