Fishing Boat Auctions

If you're out shopping for a used fishing boat this year fishing boat auctions are a smart venue to find a cheap boat. There are a lot of extreme opinions as to what you can and can't find at auctions. At one extreme you some buyers who expect to find their dream 2011 Triton or Ranger bass boat being auctioned at 95% off. While some fisherman blindly believe that only beat up and neglected bank repossessed trash gets auctioned off. While you may never find a pristine 2011 model bass boat liquidate for $500 you can find rather handsome bargains.  You can find anything from a 15' Alumacraft aluminum or jon boat all the way up to a 25' Boston Whaler or Sea Ray for 25-40% under retail at Southeast Florida boat auctions.

The key is to get consistently exposed to a lot of motivated owners, bank repo boats, liquidation sales, dealer short sales, or if you're really motivated boat salvage auctions. The problem is most boat sales or liquidation houses specialize in selling at retail.

But the big limitation in my opinion is that boat auction houses that sell bank repos or salvaged boats simply have a very limited inventory and everyone and their brother is bidding on them.  I say limited in that if you only look at one source you're only comparing that dealers 100 or so boats with each other.  If you only peruse a couple sources every now and then it may take you years to find the boat you're interested in at a price you're willing to pay.  So, if you want to buy a nicer boat than your neighbor at 40% less, then look at a lot of boats.  (There's a way to do this without spending hours and hours online).

Yeah, but what about Police or Government auctions? In spite of what the headlines say our U.S. Coast Guard just isn't seizing boats every day. The vessels that Gov Sales do liquidate tend to be small banged up boats, equipment or a pallet full of parts. You can find boats and a nice lot of motors sometimes at Gov Sales but I've not found it worth your time in most cases.

So, Where's The Fishing Boat Auctions?

One source that has been quietly aggregating every boat liquidation type sources for years under one roof (including fishing boats) can be found here: boat auctions. If you go at it on your own be prepared to compete on sites like eBay, Nat'l Liquidators, and Boat Trader. Dave Redding has been a boat enthusiast and an avid boat auctions 'junkee' full time since 2004.