About to make a fishable boat out of it.

[Way2slow]

Since I sold my Javelin, and decided using that pontoon when fishing by myself sucked, I've been working on making my 1436 jon a fishing boat.  Still have some to do yet but getting there.  I have come to one major conclusion on one thing.  I'm getting too dang old to be picking that 25 and sitting it on and off the boat.  It took most of the strength I had to lift it onto the transom. Taking the 9.9 off is no problem, but that 25 has gotten a whole lot heavier for some reason. 

[WRB]

That is because it’s a Merc?

Tom

PS, where did you find the TD bracket?

[Way2slow]

I made that years ago, just bent it out of some flat steel.  That's for a small Lowrance with down scan I put in it when I first got it.  Since I didn't use the boat regularly, and stored it flipped upside down on the trailer, I did that so I could just slide it on and off when I wanted to use it.  The Garmin transducer is mounted on the TM.  I will say, they didn't make that motor much fun to get the cable through it.  Actually, going through it was not a problem, the exit out the back was the problem.  Getting it so there was not a tight bend at the back took a little trial and error.  The last think I wanted was to start breaking wires in the $300 transducer cable.

As for the merc, I think the main thing is, at almost 75 years old, one should not be picking 135 pound motors up almost chest high to hang them on a boat.  Another one of those times my 35 year old brain wasn't listening to my 75 year old body.

[GreenPig]

Nice. I bet that 1436 will fly with 25 hp on it.

[Way2slow]

Let me just say, it deserves a lot of respect.  If you don't give it that respect, you're probably going to find yourself in a whole lot of trouble.

One of the biggest problems is the bow lift starting off with just me in the boat.  Being a tiller, and sitting in the back, I weigh 180, 6 gallons of gas a big AGM battery that weighs about 70 pounds and a smaller battery for sonars, it's very ass-end heavy.  I'm hoping that 100 or so pounds I added with the TM and little deck will help that.  Plus, I plan to put the little electronics battery up there.  I used to put the TM battery in front of the front bench and may still have to do that.

One other little deal I made was that bracket under the seat on the front bench.  Using those brackets you buy that just side on will dump your butt or scare the crap out of you when you lean to one side to get a fish or something.  I made that one so there's a large screw near the bottom and a hole in the bench seat.  Slide that one on, screw that screw into the hole and it don't move.  Don't have to worry about it tilting over sideways.    The back seat is on those slide rails so it locked down but can be moved to one side to operate the tiller.  

 

[cyclops2]

I had to move everything but the bilge pump.  30 hp 180 pounds. Short shaft motor and boat.

[Way2slow]

I have a 28 SPL (basically the same as a 30 but only weighs 128 pounds) I converted to a short shaft I could put on it and add stick steering so I could move to the front bench seat for better weight distribution.   If it turns out I am using the boat more, I will probably do that, but in the past, the boat may go a couple of years and not get put in the water and sits upside down on the trailer.  The 28 would have to be a permanent mount so flipping it over wouldn't be possible.  We will just have to see how it goes and if I get back into fishing more. 

I'm actually going to try some trolling/drift fishing for crappie in a couple of days, (should have started two weeks ago) something I have NEVER done.  I've caught one crappie in my life and that was a four pounder I caught on a spinner bait bass fishing.  I bought hundreds of dollars' worth of tackle a few years ago to try them, but have never brought myself to actually do it, and know absolutely nothing about it.

[Kevin Shoot]

go to crappie,com

[Way2slow]

Been there, done that. I've been researching them for a few months now, going to most of the sites I can find.

[WRB]

You need a 4 hand in lieu of the 2 hand engine lift.

Tom

[detroit1]

Stop flipping you boat over.

[Way2slow]

That's the best way to store one of those things if you don't use them regular.  Don't worry about finding it full of water where the leaves and trash have plugged the drain, or critters making beds in the foam under the seats and chewing on the wiring.

[detroit1]

Sorry Keith, it was a lame attempt to be funny. I would rather buy a $20 plastic tarp instead, but you do what works for you.

[Way2slow]

Boat worked fine. This was the first time I've had a gps in it, 32.7 with it over loaded.  Trolling motor did great, very low battery drain.  The homemade rod holders did a good job.  The fisherman operating everything totally failed.  Everybody but me was catching fish.  I never caught one Sunday trolling.  This morning I did manage to catch five, but at least they were decent fish.  The wind had pegged my fun meter, so I quit about 10:AM.  They have a fish cleaning station  so I cleaned them there.  I weighed the cleaned, ready to cook fish when I got home and it was 78 ounces  

Oh, and the wife tapped out, decided that boat was a little smaller than she cared for.  Which it was not the most stable thing to be in having to get up and move around in.

[CrashVector]

Nice!  Small jon boat is all you really need unless you do offshore saltwater.

[WRB]

32.7, it’s a Jon boat....can’t take the racer out of your dna!

Tom

[Way2slow]

The best part about the whole setup, I was able to use the Toyota to tow it, 200 miles round trip to the lake and three thrips to and from the lake to where we were staying, another 40 miles, so 240 miles and still had almost a 1/4 tank of gas when I got home. This was towing at about 60mph.  It has about a 15 gallon tank and the boat probably used two or three gallons.  That would have been about 45 gallons of gas in my 2500HD and another 10 gallons in pontoon.

One thing also, the Toyota has been somewhat modified for towing.  I has a Crower Cam for a strong midrange power band, the head has been ported for max velocity, different injectors that are more efficient  and the exhaust system swapped out to a larger exhaust, so it gets a little better milage than your average 93 4WD Toyota pickup.

[Deephaven]

On 3/5/2022 at 8:43 AM, detroit1 said:

Sorry Keith, it was a lame attempt to be funny. I would rather buy a $20 plastic tarp instead, but you do what works for you.

And I would like to see Keith over engineer the support for said tarp.

 

Glad the boat worked well.  Looks like a fun rig.

[Way2slow]

DeepHaven, are you suggesting I might have a tendency to go a bit toward the extreme on my redneck engineering.  I just like to make sure it's done right and I don't have to worry about it coming apart later.

Also, tarps are temporary, the only last a few months.  Flipping it over on the trailer, I don't have to worry about buying a new tarp every four or five months.

[detroit1]

Well, get some younger buck to flip it for you.  ?

We aint younguns!