Amen Reeve!, glad you found us!,, I am a SxS junkie love breaking clays, to the extent of my $ I have a CZ Ringneck in 28ga, tried the best I could to talk myself out of buying it it but it was a lost cause ! All the best Bo

Hi marolina

Thank you for the kind words on the rifles.
The Reader's Digest version:
I attended gunsmith school from 75-76 in Colorado and did general repair for a couple of years prior to going to college and ultimately, dental school but I never gave up the passion. Around 2000 I started building custom rifles and restoring high-grade shotguns. My latest project is a double rifle in 25-35 winchester build on an old Belgian 16 ga receiver and then of course, new wood. I work strictly with English walnut.
Be sure to visit the American Custom Gunmakers Guild website. ACGG.org.

As far as boatbuilding is concerned, my desire to build an Enviboat is several-fold.
1. I love wotking with my hands and I'm in my "zone" when I'm creating. I'm sure you and most people on this site know exactly what I'm talking about.
2. I'm from Pompano Beach and lived about 2 miles from Merritts Boatworks and when I was in my early teens, actually spent a summer helping a neighbor build a boat there. (I guess that episode planted a seed)
3. I LOVE to flats fish, spent about every weekend from the mid 70's to 80s bonefishing, redfishing or chasing snook and tarpon.
4. I need a boat and the Envi 17 Redfish is about perfect (I plan a foam core build)
5. Building the boat would be a cool thing to do with my adult kids.
6. The Envi designs are classic, elegant and I got to have me one.......

Glad to be on board with you all

Reeve

beautiful guns Reeve please tell us more ! some of us boat junkys are gun junkys too!

Awesome intro. Welcome aboard Reeve. It's good to know that someone else watches my videos besides me

Hello

In the course of a Google search for images of classic flats boats, I came upon a photo of the Redfish 17. By digging a little deeper, found this site and I must admit, the designs touched me. I watched all the youtube episodes of the 17 build in Maryland and began thinking that I could do this. But first a little history.
I'm in N. Central Florida but originate in Miami. From the early 70's to perhaps the mid 90's I could be found poling the flats from Biscayne Bay to the midddle keys, bonefish. Around the early part of that period, a small skiff called a Challenger began to appear and they have since become the, "holy grail" of skiff because of their beauty and functionality as a shallow water skiff. The lines of a Challenge is that of a minature Carolina sportfisherman (ahhh the bow flair) and despite being restored or made after-market by several boatbuilders, they are quite sought after and rare. I've owned 2 of them, one was simply an old hull that I found in a field in Gainesville and tried to build into a functional boat. The mistake I made was using 3/4" plywood covered in fiberglass for EVERYTHING. The boat weighed a ton which defeated the entire purpose of it. I sold it (bad mistake). Years later, I bought a completed Challenger in the late 80's but for some reason it was also too heavy and couldn't get into anything close to skinny water so I sold it too.
One day I was caught a glimpse of a boat on a trailer going the other way on the interstate and nearly wrenched my neck and drove into the trees looking at it. Turned out it was an Bayshore 20...OMG what a beautiful boat but as I was to discover, crazy expensive and polling a 20 footer can't be anything resembling fun.
The point I'm trying to make here is, there are all kinds of hull designs but there something timeless and elegant about a rounded chine and flared bow....so, I guess I'm going to have to build one of these boats, and be done with it once and for all.

Nice to meet you all.

Reeve

by the way, I'm a custom riflemaker so Marc asked me to include a photo or 2...