As soon as the weather breaks around here, I will be extending the front deck of my 16ft Bass Tracker jon boat to make room for the new trolling motor. 

First question:

All the bow mounts that I have operated were on actual "bass boats" with a pointed bow.  The motors were mounted at an angle and when deployed, were in the middle of the boat (centerline).  Should I try to mount at an angle or will I be forced to lose deck space and mount the motor at a 90 degree from the front?

This should be interesting fellas.  I will take pics when I start.

Wayne

If the aluminum is not thick enough (most are not) weld an additional plate then bolt through & through

All the square bow jon boats I have rigged, I place the mount off to one side and straight.

My first two aluminum bass boats were square bow and they were rigged that way also.

Here is the last jon boat I used to have:

Wayne, did you have any issues with the boat not tracking straight?

SPEEDBEAD, yes, a little, when I didn't have either an electric or gas motor on the transom.

It wasn't so bad that I would give up bow space to have it in the middle. Sometimes I had three sonar units on the bow platform. It was only noticeable when moving long distances, but not when fishing.