So this boat has a few storage areas. 2 in the back for the battery and the gas tank. And one in the bow where all the safety stuff is and a small tool kit. But other than that storage is limited. I’m gonna branch out to a couple new lakes. And wanted more tackle storage. My bag is full with 2 Plano boxes and plastics. And I don’t care for storing plastics in boxes.

So I went to scheels and got a flambeau 7510 and took the lid off. That’s for soft plastics and then at fleet farm got a Plano 14 gallon storage tub. Nice quality and seals well. Great latches as well. Which means I can leave it in the boat for the ride and not worry about the lid blowing off. I also got a small plastic ammo can at fleet farm and took the lid and latch off of it. For pliers and scale and spike it markers and other fishing related tools. Everything measured out great to fit and leaves room for my jig box and hard baits box. This should work out great gonna test it out tommorow.

How’d it work out???

I have been struggling with storage on my little boat for ever.

I still haven’t found that ……”ah ha” moment where I go “that’s it”, maybe I’ll get it one day.

@GRiver So far I really like it actually. For a $20 tub. It’s really nice and stout. And the lid actually slides down and fits tight and the latches are really nice and actually latch.

It’s working out well for me. I went this route for these reasons:

-It will stay dry if I get caught in any rain. Even though I try hard not to.

- hate putting stuff in the boat at the ramp. Drives me nuts. Reminds me of having to rig my whole kayak in the dark. This I just set in the boat at the house and drive to the lake and don’t even worry about it being back there.

-I can pop the lid off and reach anything I want whenever I want. No digging out a ziplock bag full of plastics or let me unzip this to grab a scale. Or whatever. I just pop the lid off and set it somewhere out of the way and I’m set.

This gives me “bass boat storage” in my tiny boat. So now when I get to the ramp it’s just throw 4 rods in the boat and go and same for the trip home.

I have a similar plastic box in my boat. It's called an ammo box and it's watertight, so I have extra soft baits and snacks in it and it stays in my canoe all summer.

15 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I have a similar plastic box in my boat. It's called an ammo box and it's watertight, so I have extra soft baits and snacks in it and it stays in my canoe all summer.

Yeah the green box inside the large Plano box is an ammo box with the lid and latch removed to make it fit inside.

13 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I have a similar plastic box in my boat. It's called an ammo box and it's watertight

I have something similar, it a small cooler with locking lid. It fits snug between the seats, call it my dry box. Keeps flares, phone, etc anything I want to protect.

22 hours ago, Joedodge said:

No digging out a ziplock bag full of plastics or let me unzip this to grab a scale. Or whatever.

I can totally understand, I don’t like rooting & rutting around for things. A tote keeps things dry …. Not like an Ammon box but dry enough.

1 hour ago, GRiver said:

I have something similar, it a small cooler with locking lid. It fits snug between the seats, call it my dry box. Keeps flares, phone, etc anything I want to protect.

I can totally understand, I don’t like rooting & rutting around for things. A tote keeps things dry …. Not like an Ammon box but dry enough.

Exactly!

This update was a total pain. So the previous owner used an unknown adhesive and glued rubber gym flooring to the bow cap. It was falling apart. And crumbling and bubbling. So I stripped it off scraped and sanded the adhesive off. The bow cap is in rough shape. But the boats 60 years old. In the future I’ll get a sheet of aluminum and replace it. For now it got a couple coats of etching primer and flat black tractor and implement paint. And remounted everything. The corner caps in the back I chemically stripped and sanded satin finish. As far as I can tell this boat has been gray, red, white, and teal lol. I also gave the inside a scrub and vacuumed the carpet really well the one lake being on a gravel road has made it a mess. I think I’m don’t with cosmetics at this point. I’m getting tired of trying to make it something it’s not haha. Great lil boat though.

Nice work. Little things like that not only make it look better, but make it more resistant to the elements.

27 minutes ago, gim said:

Nice work. Little things like that not only make it look better, but make it more resistant to the elements.

Thank you. That’s a great point

Yeah, that’s a great little improvement. You don’t need pretty up there, just secure and functional.

I made a little add to mine this week. My dad has two on his and with all the electric only lakes I load at, I am standing on the trailer a bunch. It’s just a matter of time before I slip off and he had a spare to give me so it’s a no brainer. I initially put it on the other side and when I went to step on it Wednesday the trolling motor was in the way… So it’s swapped. And I use the spare tire as a hand hold when I’m on the trailer anyway so there we go.

12 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

Yeah, that’s a great little improvement. You don’t need pretty up there, just secure and functional.

I made a little add to mine this week. My dad has two on his and with all the electric only lakes I load at, I am standing on the trailer a bunch. It’s just a matter of time before I slip off and he had a spare to give me so it’s a no brainer. I initially put it on the other side and when I went to step on it Wednesday the trolling motor was in the way… So it’s swapped. And I use the spare tire as a hand hold when I’m on the trailer anyway so there we go.

I like that! I kinda have the same issue my trailer ya have to be kinda on the money to load the boat so I have to walk out and hook the winch on and winch it up as well. I need to look into making something like that! Looks great man.

Been a minute since I’ve done anything with the boat besides cleaning. Earlier on in the thread when I mounted my graph. I used a small plastic ammo can under the front bow cap to place my Milwaukee 12v 5.0 amp hour battery in and keep wiring simple ( I was excited ) since then I got a 2 pack of 8.0 amp hour life p04 battery’s off Amazon. I made a mount and cut the ammo can down to mount the battery next to the trolling motor battery in the back of the boat. Just need to get some duplex wire and run the wiring under the floor now. It was never really in the way at all. But I wanted to do a little better job than my kayaker style box under the bow.

Was gonna fish this morning but woke up to rain and thunder and lightning that didn’t stop till after 8am. So I said screw it. But was bored so I dove deeper than I planned. I tore the front decks out of the boat. Took a peak at what is there. And went and bought some aluminum and rivets did some measurements and ripped all the wood framing out. And framed the front deck section out in aluminum. And cut the deck out for a trolling motor pedal tray ( it’s a closet dryer vent box from Lowe’s). Took me about 2.5 hours to knock it out and I took 37 pounds off water logged wood out of the front of the boat. So far her diet of wood framing and removing the seats and bases has saved 100 pounds. Not a bad $100 project. Just need to paint the tray and screw it down. I need to vacuum the front of the boat out it’s full of mud and twigs and everything else. And now I have access to the front part of the boat.

Got the tray painted and installed. Need a few more screws though. I’m gonna add a thin piece of rubber mat of some kind to the bottom to keep the pedal from moving around to much. And drill a hole in the back of the pan for drainage. Just in case. It has a slight grade to the pan so it will drain and I won’t store the pedal in it when not in use just incase. Really happy with this project honestly. Also vacuum out the floor and cleaned it up from years of water and grime and all the aluminum and stuff from drilling. Nice that if I need to I can access the front of the boat now.

@Joedodge ……Looks good, did you bolt, or rivet the framework. When I pull up the pic it gets fuzzy. Getting rid of 100lbs is going to make a difference in the boat.

I had a lot of fun when I did my build.

Can you post a pic of the overall deck area? From stern to bow or vice versa.

I email the pics to myself and resize them that way to fit the forum. Sometimes they come out blurry. I hate that so much. But oh well. Sorry about that. It is all 3/16 riveted together. The frame work is tied to what is left of the front bench with rivets. There is two uprights and a cross bar tied to the bottom with rivets directly under the trolling motor pedal tray. But the far edge uprights and the very front are notched and just weight holds them down on the small ribs. I really hope it does. Not that the boats bad by any means. But it certainly can’t hurt. I have a little more wood to get out of the boat. Then it will only be the deck boards and the transom. Which I’m honestly not concerned about. It’s been a blast. Kinda like being at work at home though lol. If I could have worked on it at work I’d have welded everything.

Here’s a photo bow to stern. It’s just flat from deck with one hatch, a middle floor board, and two boards that act as storage for things tank and the battery’s and somwere to sit.

I'm amazed at what you've done with your rig. Congratulations!

Maybe I missed this in your earlier posts, but have you thought about adding foam flotation blocks?

30 minutes ago, Capt Ed said:

I'm amazed at what you've done with your rig. Congratulations!

Maybe I missed this in your earlier posts, but have you thought about adding foam flotation blocks?

Thank you so much. I’m really

Enjoying the lil boat. I enjoy making it what I want as much as fishing lol. No there is no foam in it. I’m possibly gonna do Some Pink insulation board on the floor under the decking.

36 minutes ago, Joedodge said:

Some Pink insulation board

That will work to provide flotation. I understand a drawback is it melts when exposed to gas or oil.

1 hour ago, Capt Ed said:

That will work to provide flotation. I understand a drawback is it melts when exposed to gas or oil.

Oh boy does it lol. Had a spill

In a buddy’s boat. And it makes a heck of a mess. That’s one thing holding me back on putting any in my boat. I’m a pretty real person. This isn’t a 70k dollar bass boat. It’s a real world affordable small Aluminum boat. Things spill, accidents happen. And I’ve always tried to plan for things like that. And would rather not have to tear a boat apart because of something like that. Heck scroll back in this thread my gas tank didn’t vent and decided it was gonna and blew 1.5 gallons of gas everywhere lol.