Rudder for jon boat

[pauldconyers]

I've got a 14 foot jon boat that I have a 40 lb thrust MinnKota foot controlled trolling motor up front. A lot of times my rear end will want to swing around on me or when I come to a stop it will kind of swirl around a bit. I used to have a 9 foot plastic 2 man boat that clamped on to the back of the transom, would something like that help in this situation? If so where could I find one? I looked around online and the only thing I could find were ones that mount to the trolling motor up front and I don't think that's what I need. Any ideas?

[Brad Reid]

Go over to YouTube and check out fishing legend, Roland Martin, where he has published a video about fishing out of a jon boat with some of the very adaptations, cheap ones, that you could adopt. Check out what he uses for a rudder.

 

So very cool to see a legendary angler fishing from the bank, fishing out of jon boats, etc. So worth a viewing just for this!
 

 

Brad

[Way north bass guy]

My 12’ tinny did the same thing, so I took a piece of plywood and cut it about 18” long by 6” wide, and cut a curved edge to the bottom so any weeds would slide off. Then just screwed it to a piece of 2x2 and use a c-clamp to hold it on the back of the boat while in use. It hangs about 6” below the hull of the boat when installed. Works perfectly, boat doesn’t spin or wag around at all, and it cost about $5 ( for the clamp).

[pauldconyers]

Yeah with my schedule right now I would rather buy something and not have to take the free time to make something when I could be out fishing. This has to be a problem a lot of people have, I have looked all over the internet and have not found a single thing. Wish I had kept hold of the one I had. It was real simple, it clamped on to the transom like a trolling motor does then had a rudder that kind of looked like the flag on a mailbox that just sat in the water.

[Way2slow]

Shoot, just put you a pedestal seat right in the middle, then the boat can swivel 360 degrees and you can keep fishing in the same direction.

[Way north bass guy]

22 hours ago, pauldconyers said:

Yeah with my schedule right now I would rather buy something and not have to take the free time to make something when I could be out fishing. This has to be a problem a lot of people have, I have looked all over the internet and have not found a single thing. Wish I had kept hold of the one I had. It was real simple, it clamped on to the transom like a trolling motor does then had a rudder that kind of looked like the flag on a mailbox that just sat in the water.

If you have even a tiny shred of handyman ability, the design I made takes literally 5 min to make and costs pretty much nothing if you can find a couple scrap pieces of wood. 

[pauldconyers]

27 minutes ago, Way north bass guy said:

If you have even a tiny shred of handyman ability, the design I made takes literally 5 min to make and costs pretty much nothing if you can find a couple scrap pieces of wood. 

Yeah, I could make something like that. I'm just surprised something like that isn't more readily available. Especially when I bought one off the shelf before.

[Ratherbfishing]

If you have (or can find) an old transom mount trolling motor which still has a good mount (one that pivots at different angles), remove the old TM shaft and replace it with a wooden paddle.  You may have to shave off some of the handle with a file so it will slide in and fit properly (snug is much better than loose) but I've found this to be a terrific keel.

[LonnieP]

They make one called the Bullnose rudder. You could probably clamp it onto a piece of pipe or find an old trolling motor.