Boat Pump Pain

As gasoline prices neared $4 a gallon recently and diesel fuel prices shot even higher, fuel-guzzling motorboats with "For Sale" signs have become a common sight.

Flat-bottomed "scooter" or "bay" boats with giant outboard engines have joined huge motor homes and V8 pickups on used car lots as owners find it hard to keep fuel tanks filled.

Big charter fishing boats that burn hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel have also been feeling the bite of the budget ax.

"(Fuel costs) just about cut our business in half, if not more," said Matt Murphy, who owns and operates three charter boats: the 65-foot Murphy's Law, the 56-foot Thunderbird and the 52-foot Hardbottom.

"We had to raise our prices to keep our boats running," he said. "But a lot of people, right now, with the price of fuel for their own car and their own food, just don't have the money to go."

As popular as fishing is in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, he knows all too well that there are higher priorities for many families' budgets,Murphy said.

"We should be running at least three days a week and we're lucky to get one day a week," he said.

"People say, ‘Well, can you come down $5 or $10?' I say, ‘If you can get Exxon or Texaco to come down $5 or $10, we'll be glad to,'" Murphy said. "It used to cost me $125 a day on fuel. Now it's $460 to $500 a day for fuel. We were charging $65 (a person) a day back then and now we're charging $75, or $50 a half day."

With 800-gallon boat fuel tanks to fill, Murphy said he had been sending a truck with a 98-gallon tank to Mexico to buy cheaper diesel fuel.

But now federal officials have stopped that practice, he said. Oil companies must have applied pressure in the right places, he said.

One local boat dealer, Ray Lashbrook of Rio Hondo Marine, said fuel prices are only affecting lower-income boat owners.

Half his customers work in the oil industry and make a very good living, Lashbrook said.

Most of his customers think little of paying the going price for gasoline or diesel fuel to run the big pickup trucks that pull their boats.

They will also fill up their boat tanks when it is time to go fishing, Lashbrook said.

"Our sales (of boats, motors and trailers) were spectacular last year," he said. "This year and last year, right up until Hurricane Dolly."

But Murphy said that in addition to high fuel costs, he gets smaller crowds on the charter fishing trips he does run.

In today's economy, many people who used to enjoy a day's fishing are now unable to afford the gasoline just to drive to the Island - and then also pay for a fishing trip - as often as they used to, Murphy said.

"A friend of mine, the other day, he said, ‘You want my boat? I can't afford to run it no more,'" Murphy said.

"He said, ‘I used to be able go out to the East Bank, it used to cost me about $120. I'd get some beer and some sandwiches, a little bit of ice and some gasoline and a couple friends of mine and we'd go out to the East Bank and catch us a few fish.'

"My friend said, ‘Now it costs me $300 to $400. That's more than I make in two days. If you want my boat, you can have it.' "