This Bradenton Skiff Floats in 5 Inches of Water. That's the Point.
Made Here, week one: Beavertail Skiffs builds technical poling skiffs on 15th Street East in Bradenton, each one to its owner's specs, and sorts the whole lineup by how little water you need.
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Welcome to Made Here, a new Wednesday thing where I point at something built in our corner of Florida and say, more or less, "look at that." No food. Marina has food handled. This is for stuff you can hold, haul, or, this week, stand on top of and push across a sandbar with a stick.
Week one goes to Beavertail Skiffs, which builds boats at 4601 15th Street East in Bradenton. A build shop. In their own words, a "dedicated crew of seasoned boat craftsmen and craftswomen" building technical poling skiffs, and "every skiff is custom crafted to the exact specifications of its owner."
The menu is sorted by depth
Most companies sort boats by size or price. Beavertail sorts them by how much water you're willing to admit you need. The menu literally has three shelves: Ultra-Skinny Water, Skinny Water and Big Water.
That's the most Florida-fisherman way to organize anything. Somewhere a guy in a sun hoodie looked at a sandbar everyone else drives around and said, "No. Through it."
Ultra-skinny: the 5-inch club
The Micro is 16 feet 8 inches long, 60 inches wide, and drafts 5 inches. Gross weight is listed at 400 pounds. It comes as a tiller (up to 30 hp) or side console (up to 50 hp), carries three people, and has a 10-gallon livewell and an 8-gallon tank. The page's opening line is "You were fishing where?", which is also what your brother-in-law will say. Base price on the page: $35,900, trailer included in the standard features.
The Rival is the 16-foot-10 sibling with a 70-inch beam, also a 5-inch draft, tiller or side console, room for four. Listed base price: $34,900, the lowest number on the board.
The Mosquito stretches to 18 feet 2 inches and still drafts "5+" inches. Standard 60 hp with an optional 70, a 15-gallon tank and a choice of tiller, side or center console. Beavertail calls it "the benchmark of what a true technical poling skiff should be." Base price: $42,900.
All three have carbon fiber editions now, per their pages, if regular lightweight isn't light enough for you.
Skinny and big water
The Elite is 17 feet 8 inches with a 7-plus-inch draft, up to 90 hp, and a hull "tuned to cut hull slap." Hull slap is the noise that tells every redfish in the zip code you've arrived. Base price: $51,900. The skinny shelf also holds the Strike and the Vengeance.
Then it gets serious. The Air is an 18-foot-3 center console built for "big bays and oceanside flats," up to 115 hp, 35-gallon livewell, base $56,900. The Lightning is the 20-footer, rated up to 300 hp, 48-gallon tank, base $67,900. It has two insulated compartments that can work as a 120-quart cooler or be plumbed as a release well, which settles the age-old question of whether the drinks or the fish get the good seat.
The part I keep thinking about
The Micro's options list includes a fold-up seat mounted on the lean-back bar, and Beavertail's own label for it is "Take a load off." That's the whole sport. You stand on a platform for six hours, holding a 22-foot pole, staring at water so still you could read through it, and someone in Bradenton decided you deserved a little seat. Good people.
Paint is your call too. The site promises gel coat colors from a selection "as vast as a rainbow," with an inspiration gallery for anyone who freezes up in front of the swatches.
Try one first
They run a Try Before You Buy program: book a half day with one of their Pro Team captains, who own and rely on these boats daily. If you order a skiff afterward, they credit the charter, up to $500, toward the build. Their guide list runs from Galveston Bay to Hilton Head, with a captain listed right up the road in Ellenton.
And these Bradenton boats travel. The about page says they've delivered custom skiffs to Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, the Carolinas, the Caribbean "and beyond."
Want to see one up close without a charter? Beavertail's events page has them at the Fort Myers Boat Show, Nov. 12-15, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the Vengeance and Rival on display in space L/316.
Before you price one out, brush up on the water itself: our fall snook guide and how to read a tide chart are a good start.
Somebody in Bradenton is building the boat that gets you to the fish nobody else can reach. I just think that's nice to know.
— Sandy
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