I have resently took too spending almost all of my fishing time on a smaller river for bass and musky.  Currently, I have a small 12' v-hull with an 8hp motor but have found that the v-hull is not the best for the sallow water and getting in and out of the river.  The river does have a few boat ramps but they are not much so you end up pushing and pulling the boat in and out a lot.  So i want to set up a 14' jon boat to bass fish out of but still be light enough to get in and out of the river.  Any ideas or advise?  

this setup would work best if your going to have one other person fishing with but get a 12-14 ft flat bottem jon boat wider the better with the biggest motor you can fit on it, then I would convert it to a jet out board so you can get up in the REAL shallow water. then build you a front deck and put at lest a 36 lbs thrust foot controled trolling motor I would go with a 50 or 60 lbs of thrust. then get you a nice little depth finder. and I thinks thats about it.

Jet drive is definately the way to go for you. A 20 hp jet (head would be 30hp) would do nicely for you.

Here are a couple of boats im looking at.  They are the weight that im looking for and i think my 8hp will push this size boat well.  The weld-craft already has a front deck in it.  http://www.akmccallumco.com/weldcraft.htm   But i dont know how stable it would be? :-/  The other boat im looking at is a 1436 alumacraft that a local dealer has made in to what they call a minor league fisherman.  http://www.akmccallumco.com/pan-bass.htm  I know that a larger boat would be more stable but would be more than i could get in and out of the river.  Which boat would you choose or do you have anyother ideas?