The Critter skiff was designed by Glen Coker and built by Majek Boats. At the time, Glen Coker (founder of Portland Marine) was the General Manager of Ronnie’s Marine in Corpus Christi. Glen had built several boats through the years including the Apollo and Salty bay boats. The Critter was designed for the shallow waters around Corpus, Aransas Pass, and Rockport.
The Critter Getter was “The Modern Skiff” for its time. Glen designed the boat and closely supervised the construction of the mold by a local old-timer around Corpus. Once the mold was completed, it was moved over to Majek for production. This was sometime in the early 1980’s and Majek was just getting started. Glen was good friends with Johnny Majek. It was natural that he would turn to his buddy who was just starting to build his own boats. In some ways, The Critter and the Texas Skiff were cousins: they were built around the same time, in the same boatyard, for similar purposes. Small, inexpensive, easy to operate, and ran skinny.
Ronnie Hubbell (owner of Ronnie’s Marine at the time) tells a story of Glen standing in calf-deep water and having one of the Majek boys run the Critter right beside him to demonstrate how shallow it ran. This was for a television commercial.
Of course, this was all forty-plus years ago. Most fishermen ran bay boats or aluminum boats before then. There were also small boats like the SkiBarge around. The 1980’s were a remarkable time in the Coastal Bend for fishermen. The fishing was INCREDIBLE. This was the time frame when the boats that “ran skinny” – Majek, Haynie, Shoalwater, Tran Sport, and others – started being built and soon dominated the flats.
Specifications:
- Length 16’6″
- Weight 400 lbs
- 100% hand-laid glass
- 50 HP maximum
- 750 lb capacity
- self-bailing
Trivia: The Critter was named after Glen and Liz’s daughter Peggy!
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