brewfish

I'm a firm believer that if the spirit is willing than the flesh will be able. An incredible testament to power of a determined spirit.

Cabella has some dc powered rope lights that look like they should put out a good bit of light but not enough to blind you.

Not even once!! Getting ahead in life, now that would be on a weekly basis. Here's the solution to your problem QUIT PLANNING TRIPS *sneak attack* spur of the moment trips don't give the stars time to properly align to spoil trip.

Wow I never saw that one coming. Man 63 is not that old at all, I wonder what the cause was.

I've never heard it called "doodlesocking" before. I always just called it jigging. My father-in-law is a big advocate of this way of fishing for crappie. He has a old paint roller extenstion, the type that can telescope way out and on the end he has an old roller attached that just has the metal hook looking part. The springy thing that would hold the roll on has been removed. We find thick patches of weeds or hydrilla and use the roller setup to pull open a hole. This works pretty well too. What ever you decide to use you need to make sure that it is pretty sturdy because sometimes those hydrilla patches can be mighty tough to make a hole in. I just use a brem buster type fiberglass cane pole with a little lead head jig with a rubber skirt that's been tipped with a minnow. Then get to jigging! I have noticed that we seem to catch catfish like this on a regualr basis too. Last time we went out we ended up comming back with crappie, catfish, warmouth & brem all pulled from thick hydrilla patches. Good luck and i hope this helps.

Man six hundred bucks for that was a steal! Looks like a good project boat to me. Not to mention at that price you can afford to get some extra goodies like a new fish finder 8-) Keep us posted on how it turns out.

I'm currently doing the same sort of thing with a flat bottom jon boat. I cut the seats out and am getting some angle aluminum welded up with a small piece of 1/4" sheet aluminum on both ends of the angle stock. I am doing this so that i can aviod more welding by simply bolt it in to the boat, not to mention that i feel much better about bolting something in rather that trying to have the thin sides of the boat welded and then expecting them to hold up under constant stress.... welds do break contrary to popular belief. The first jon boat i owned I went out in a lake when it was really too rough to go out and ended up having the section of the bow break on me (the part where it starts making the curve toward the bow that's welded) About a 5" section split right down the middle of the weld If you feel like really spending some money you can use either aluminum or staniless steel to deck it out. This would defintly make it lighter but that is seriously going to cost some $$. IMHO i think you would be better served to cover it back with plywood but make sure that you do a better job and sealing the wood from moisture. If it is going to always stay outside I would use some sort of liquid plastic type wood finish that would permantly solve the warping problem. If you have deep pockets then i say heck yah go for the metal option! You may have to do a little more framing with the angle in order to keep you from having to buy a really thick (and expensive) sheet of metal. Not to mention avoiding the dreaded "oil can" effect when walking on it but once you're done the only thing you'll ever have to replace again would be the carpet.

I am sure folks will give me grief about this but i just don't think that flotation is totally necessary. Is it nice to have if the boat capsizes or gets swamped, sure it is. I don't think it's so much a life saving issue like everyone has stated (that's what life jackets are for) but rather more of a means to be able to recover the boat easily (i.e. not on the bottom) I will make one acception to this though and that would be in the case of boats going out in large bodies of water or the ocean in which case it could easily mean the difference between life or death. Being able to cling to a boat makes it much easier to be spotted by plane or boat. Either way a jon boat has no business being in the ocean or even a really large lake where the waves can get rather large and easily swamp a little jon boat. I digress, it really just depends on you. I have a 14 ft jon boat that i am currently working on and have already cut out both the front and back seats. For me it' really a non-issue. I plan on cutting the big styrofoam blocks that I got out from underneath the seats into slabs and then putting those under neath the plywood floor that i putting in. I also plan on putting a little bit on the sides of the boat as well and securing it with some spray foam. If I have any left over i'm sure i can find some secure places to put it so that I keep all of the origonal flotation that the boat came with. Just some food for thought.

I would have to say that a rattle trap has to be my least favorite bait of all time. I have fished em'every which way i can think of for years and havn't ever got so much as a single bite on one. Why i still keep them in my box is beyond me. Buzz baits also seem to be another mystery to me. I'm sure both of these baits catch fish but i have all but give up trying to learn how to fish them. Give me a rubber worm (or frog), jitter bug or crank bait any day and i'm sure i'll catch something. Another bait i'm almost ashamed to say is an old favorite is a bettle spin. I've never caught a lunker on one but can't count the number of quality bass i've reeled in with these things.

I can see from discussion that the bed liner must not be worth messing with for the most part but has anyone ever tried using a rubberized undercoating spray? There are many different brands out there but the theme is the same. There main purpose is to help deaden sound. I don't have any leaks to deal with, that's not my intent. I am looking for something that might make the boat a little bit more quite. The best part is, is that a couple of cans of this stuff is pretty cheap. So anyone tried anything like this?

LBH - Man, I salute you for the patients and determination that it must have took to take on that job. I didn't have even close to 1/3 of that to deal with and as you can see am throwing in the towel. Oh by the way GREAT JOB on the paint job!! Thanks allot for raising the bar like that, so when I get done with my own conversion I can look at the paint job and woefully disappointed. ;D

I think that i have come to the conclusion that the time, effort and $$ it would take to remove that small amount just isn't worth it. I am going to be decking over it anyways. Thanks for saving me the trouble guys.

Before construction Currently under construction. It a 1974 Ouchita and she won't get er' done right now but I have a vision that i am slowly working toward. I plan on decking both the front and the back of the boat, installing a live well toward the bow of the boat and to have some type of lighting in the boat for night time fishing. <SIGH> one day......

Well as the title states this stuff is the absolute worst ever! I am having a heck of a time getting all of this stuff off of my boat. I used a grinder with a sanding disk that has removed *most* of it (except for the few spots where it appears that the junk just got ground into the aluminum. There are some places however that i can't get to with a grinder and hand sanding this stuff off is out of the question! I already tried that with some 80 grit sand paper and that stuff just laughed at me!! That being said I decided to go to the hardware store to find something that would remove the rest of this stuff and came out with the big goose egg...nada. I found everything from MEK to goo gone but nothing that really seemed designed to remove carpet glue. To make matters worse, some sections still seem to have some of the rubber backing from the old carpet still stuck to it. :-/ Does anyone know of anything that i can use to remove this stuff??

Brewing beer and fishing are my two hobbies, that and drinking beer while fishing ;D It's also the handle i use on multiple boards cause it's easier to keep up with that way.

Since I live in FL I couldn't tell you where to go. I know around here i called a few sheetmetal /welding shops and was able to find a place that actually sells metal to the public. Not quite as cheap as going striaght to the dealer but they sell by the ft. I don't need a 20 ft stick of aluminum angle, which will be what you have to buy from the metal supplier. I did find an online supplier though before i decided to look localy w w w .speedymetals.com/default.aspx

Yah, i'll second that motion. I guess that DIY attitude got the best of me this time. Lesson learned! I can only hope that painting will go more smoothly than this did. I should have better luck with that since I have an experienced painter in my corner, not to mention free use of a high volume low velocity paint rig. I'll eventually post some pics of the project once I get a little more work done. Right now it's just a stripped down to nothing old tub.

Well, I decided to go against all good and simple advice of taking my jon boat to a professional welder and decided to try my own hand at fixing a few little holes....well at least one used to be little. I looked around at various rods for patching aluminum and decided on HTS-2000. The video made it look like a snap, like how could anything possibly go wrong? I bought a mapp/O2 gas bottle setup and went to work on my first little hole on the top edge/ rail of the boat. Everything was going according to plan at first. I heated the aluminum hot enough to make the rod melt and was almost able to fill in the hole....almost. I almost had the hole filled when part of the railing decideds to catch fire right next to the hole I was try to fill in. I pulled the torch away from the hole to blow out the little fire (glue from old carpet grass) and of course the metal cooled down too much and the rod wouldn't melt so i couldn't fill the rest of the hole. I proceede to heat the area back up and i guess i had the tip of the torch too close or held it there too long because before you know it the little screw hole started getting bigger. I not being the type to know when to leave well enough alone i thought, hey i can still fix this...NOT!! I only sucedeed in making a little screw hole large enough to stick in entire pinky finger in!! For all of the money (50$ torch setup, 20$ HTS rods) I could have just taken the dang thing to a professional and got in done right the first time and they only charge 60$ an hour. > Now i have to worry about if they can even fill the stupid hole i made (since it's half filled with that stupid rod) or if i'll have to use some type of putty now. The moral of the story is to know your limitations. It cheaper in the long run to just have someone who knows what they are doing take care of it right the first time. Now I still have to pay a professional and am already out of 70$ and am sure will be out of at least another $60

Well after much thought and product comparison (and lord knows there are many) I've decided to try HTS-2000 brazing rods for aluminum. I found a guy on flea bay selling the rods individually so I didn't have to shell out 70 bucks just to find out if you will work or not. I bought a few and will report back with the results.

Gheenoes are pretty nice if you are in some skinny water. If you start getting even a little chop be prepared for a wet, rough ride. They also won't have the room a jon boat will BUT they are more quite than a plain ol' unmodified jon. If it's just you then the room really shouldn't be an issue. You can pick up a brand new 13' high sider gheenoe for about $900. I know they also come with a center storge compartment(or could be live well). They are all over the place down in florida. I started to buy one but I only have room for one boat so i chose a jon because not only can i bass fish out of it i can also go gigging flouder out of it which really wouldn't be practical out of a gheenoe. I guess it really just comes down to what the boat is going to be used for as both are nice cheap little boats.

Suuuurrree take they easy route. I just have to wonder though how much salt water that the boat has been in. I know that extended use in salt water makes it a royal ***** to weld if you can at all. I would sure hate to find out the hard way with a hole blown in the side of the boat that welding isn't going to work. Hmmm.. :-?

I have a aluminum jon boat that has various little holes in it from things like fish finders to mystery spots (just bought the boat yesterday it has blobs of some putty looking crap in the transom of the boat right at the weld location. That being said i'm not sure if it's just some pin holes down there or hair line cracks in the weld. Either way that putty looks like a pile of dog $$$$ > in the bottom of the boat and i'm not about to redo the whole boat from the ground up and leave that in it. That being said i have been looking into what options i have and run across w w w.aluminumrepair.com/video_new.asp this product which looks pretty awesome from the videos i watched. I especially like the fact that it can be done simply using a mapp gas torch. I was just wondering does anyone have experience with this stuff or similar products? I don't mind spending the coin if it works as advertised but i wouldn't be apposed to spending less on an equally worthy product. Bottom line i just want what ever i buy to work and do a good job! Tight lines, Joe

I live in Palm Coast , which is pretty close to St.Augustine. I like to fish the st.johns but unfortuantly the last couple of times out i got my but kicked by my father in law, we were just speck fishing though. I just bought a "project boat" tonight so it will be a few weeks until i can start really hitting the water around here to figure out where some honey holes are at. I used to go fishing out of Deland a lot before moving up this way so unfortuantly all of this area is new to me. Only one way to fix that huh, go fishing! FYI, i'm always up for finding someone else to go fishn' with as i usually go by myself.