I chose to pass on posting on this thread early on because I knew where it would go. My opinion along this line has always been...boats are a compromise. If there was a boat that would do everything on the coast....I would own one.
My first thought regarding the OP was, "What brand/kind of boat did the guide own?"
Lot's of people fish in the flats. To some that's 2' of water...to others it's 6-9." I spend a lot of time in the shallow end. The brand/type of boats I see most often are Majeks, Ibis, Shallow Sports, Shadows, a buttload of kayaks, lots of poling skiffs and a few airboats. I don't view any of those as a combo boats....maybe bad combo boats.
If you want to fish off the back of shrimp boats on good days and in the bays on bad days you have to compromise. I know nothing about POC but if I chose a combo boat for the Port Aransas, Baffin area, it in my opinion, would probably be different than Centerpole would chose for Port Mansfield and SPI, I mentioned in another thread about towing a friend's 24' Haynie out of the flats. He and his son owned and fished out of the ugliest boat ever made out of Port Aransas for many years. On the very first day with the Haynie they put in at Bird Island and tore the lower unit off in Baffin where they had fished for years.
