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.