Their are several boats that do well as a lake boat and a inshore ,, sal****er ,, boat. But as you go father out to sea,, offshore ,, you are talking about a sal****er boat. The biggest difference will in range, besides the size of the boats hull is the size of the fuel tank determines how far you can safely go out and back. Also you have bigger fish holds, and rough water designs built into the boat vs a Bass boat built for shallow water lake conditions and higher speeds. Salt attacks all boats, gear, motors, the same. Rods have a real science built into them, line rating and action are built into the rods for different applications. Line wt. rating is not always heavier for bigger fish. San Diego waters have Bluefin Tuna that are Freight Trains after you hook one and can be line shy, this means if they see a heavy 40-60 lb line running to a live bait, and that bait is not swimming right, they ignore it, so getting them to bite sometimes you have to drop down use a line rated at 20 lbs. Using a 20lb line for Black Bass and Catfish is common when fishing around weeds and brush. The only way to beat a Bluefin in that battle is to have enough 20lb line on a reel big enough to store some capacity to let the fish run with some resistance, the drag setting on the reel, and the fish back in it back in several times. The drag washers in the Sal****er reels are bigger, and made of different material from mfg. to mfg. and are made to take the heat build up from a big fish pulling out line with the drag set. Same for the rods, one rod for Back Bass may have the same line rating like 20lbs , but a Sal****er rod will have a line rating as a 20 to 40lb line. It will have a bigger butt and longer grips and dwarf the Bass rod even though it has a similar line rating. There is a lot more but this is just a summary of why a informed sales clerk at a store will ask what your uses are going to be. So yes it really does matter if you want to have the right tool for the right job. I have complete AND different set ups for fishing Trout in a stream, fishing for Trout in a lake, Stripers including a fly set up for those, Rock Cod, Halibut, river fishing Salmon, fishing Salmon in the Ocean, Albacore Tuna and Bluefin Tuna. I don't fish for Black Bass, even though I live in some the best Bass fishing that a guy could want, they just don't appeal to me. And yeas, I have different boats for what I fish for. The bigger boat in my avatar, a 24' Skipjack is mostly Sal****er, a 15' Boston Whaler set up for Diving and casting off of chasing Stripers here in the Delta, but we do sometimes use it fishing inshore on Dive trips. We also have a really nice Ski Boat that has nothing to do with fishing, it is going to my grown kids this year, they can partner up have it for the grand kids to tow around,,,gregg