After fishing out of a 12 ft Montgomery Wards Seaking (which was obviously never designed to be a 'hardcore' 140 day a year, fishing boat.... but I used it that way, anyway :-)) with a Honda 9.9, for the last 10 years, I finally got my dreamboat in February.

It is a 14 1/2 ft, G3 V143, with a Yamaha 25hp 4 stroker (max for the boat). Anyway, I just finished installing the full, carpeted front deck, and bow mounted trolling motor. Plus, reinforced, and carpeted the whole rear lower floor, with pedastal seat base.

My new baby goes very close to 30mph, and will take me all over some of the bigger lakes I fish, all day long, on no more than 3 or 4 gallons...... an important feature if you are a poor guy like me, who fishes too much, and doesn't work enough :-)

So anyway, did I say "I was stoked" ? :-)

Isn't she perty :-)

When I get to my spot, I simply pick up my pedastal from the rear mount, and sit it into the pedastal base on the upper deck. I have two seats for it, but I fish by myself (by choice) 99% of the time anyway.

The smartest part of the whole front deck is hidden underneath (so I'm glad I thought to take this photo). Ya' see, my deck is 5 ft 2 inches wide, and 5 ft 10 long.... so I had to add a small triangle of wood to the top. I used a high density laminate, 3/4 inch plywood, and gave it two heavy coats of marine sealant. The irregular shape you see laminated to the underside of the deck, does three jobs, all at once. A) It holds the front triangle and main deck together, as one. The hatch is cut out 2" x 2" smaller, giving my hatch a 1 inch lip all the way around to rest on. (very strong), and C) it gives the pedastal base 1 1/2 inches, of super laminated plywood to bolt through (again, very solid).

Peace,

Fish

PS, The whole last foot of the deck lays flat across the only bench my boat had (and is securely mounted to it) plus I have three verticle supports, at strategic points around the deck, which transfer the weight straight down to the hull reinforcement ribs. I weigh 250 lbs, and this deck doesn't flex 1/8 of an inch anywhere ! :-)

Oh.... plus, I hate benches..... and so this design took the only bench I had, and made it disapeer :-)

Whooo Hoooo ! It's ON next Spring buddies :-) ....... But Sturgeon and Stripers even sooner.... only 4 more months ? :-)

Oh..... the 80 qt icebox is my trophy bass livewell.

Chris you did an awesome job customizing your rig. That's a sweet looking ride. I've got a buddy who is undertaking a similar project. I am going to send him a link to this post to help him out. Well done!

I have to say, it was a lot more work than I expected.... and there were lots of things that came up throughout the project that I / we never considered, but we just kept working through them.

And in the end, I just really couldn't be happier with how it all came out :-)

Thanks again,

Fish

Very Nice!!!!!  I really like what you did with that.

There are quite a few guys on here with some customized rigs.  Here is mine:

Thank you.

Yours will gitterdone too :-)

Stick a pig !

Fish Chris

how did you figure out how to do that? did you have some sort of drawn plan or something to follow? i might be interested in something like that.....if things go as planned this next month

No plans... on paper anyway. Well, maybe scratch paper. My buddy and I just kind of winged our way through it, and every time we came up against an issue, we just brainstormed a bit, and went with the best idea between the two of us..... which is all the more reason I am so happy with how it came out.

Peace,

Fish

Great Job Fish Chris!!!!  I really like what you have done, good looking rig.

Dude that is a sweet ride!  It reminds me of the Doug Hannon camo jon boat (except the 2000 version)he used to run around in before he was as big as he is today!  

Love it!!

Nice Chris, you must be pumped.  I know the guys at Yamaha will be when they see the pic of the 12+you had in her the other day

Curios question- We all know Yamaha distributes G3 but on my buddies, it says right on the coast guard tag "manufactured by skeeter".  Does yours say that too?   Wondering if it's just the 12's .

That is a beautiful rig Fish Cris, you did an awesome job on that thing!!!

Chris,

 Awesome job on the rig. I have been thinking about doing almost the exact same thing. The only  thing holding me back is can two people fish out of it OK? Also is the front deck stable?

 Great job.

I weigh 250 lbs, and this deck doesn't flex 1/8 of an inch anywhere ! :-)