The saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention. Like many tournament crappie anglers, Wayne Inman’s choice of crappie boat is a standard bass boat retrofitted to accept rod holders for vertical tight-line fishing. Two anglers sit side by side on the front deck of the boat to man rods.
Unfortunately, Inman’s boat, like every other standard bass boat on the market, was designed to accommodate only one seat.
“I couldn’t find a two-seater post that I needed for the bass boat,” said Inman. “I’m a machinist by trade, a fabricator, so I sat down one afternoon and started running through some AutoCad designs and drawings, and I came up with this current design for a support that would accommodate two seats from one seat socket.
“I fabricated one up real quick and took my granddaughter fishing to test it. I had taken some pictures of her sitting up there fishing and put one of the pictures on crappie.com.”
Little did Inman know he had just marketed what would turn into a viable garage business for him. As it turns out, Inman wasn’t the only angler looking to put two seats on a stable platform in the front of a boat that only had one seat receiver.
“The next thing I knew, I was getting calls left and right. ‘Can you make one of these things for me?’” explained Inman. “After that, the design kind of evolved. Now I’ve built in features like an umbrella holder, a place to store pliers and even a cup holder.”
The multi-positional pivoting features of the Dub-L-Seat allows the angler to move one seat to the center, three straight across or fit two chairs up front. The receiver is made of coated aluminum, and retails direct from the manufacturer at $269.
For more information or to order, contact Inman through his Web site at www.dub-l-seat.com or by phone at 662-416-1296.
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