Used John Boats/John Boats in General

What's y'all advice on buying a used john boat and just general John boat advice?
Thanks !

Buy a welded boat. No rivets to leak.

Hunted, fished and trapped out of a 14 foot Alumacraft 1456 for 29 years. Served me very well. Crowded for more than two people. Carried a large load to the trap line and a larger load back! Stable and easy to climb into and out of in the marsh. 9.9 hp outboard moved me along at 14 mph. Felt a little undersized when facing big stretches of water on windy days. Sold it this past summer but still have a smaller 10 foot jon boat for tiny waters using oars for propulsion.

Chris

Get a jon boat with the quick bolt on wheels. It will allow you to easily access lots of bodies of water, that don't have good road access.

My Uncle David had a jon boat with wheels like that at my Grandparents' house. Long before I could drive, I would roll the jon boat down the road and through the woods to the old Miami Erie Canal system. It gave me access to many miles of canal and 3 decent sized lakes.

Keith

Still on the search for one myself......

I guided out of a 12' Valco for years, and have owned two others. For me and the wife duck hunting or fishing lakes and even SF bay it was great. Obviously not for big water or rough days but very stable to work out of and if we were ditch fishing or hunting floodwaters without a good launch ramp it was small enough I could always take off the 15 horse motor and drag it up a bank or drag it out with the truck.

Pete

Very cool ! I know we're talking about boats but could we see some more on those cage traps you got in your boat there? Re door looks very interesting.

X2 on welded not riveted. I like tiller steering instead of a console. leaves a lot more room for dead stuff and traps.

I see em on the buy sell and trade Facebook pages down here for $3-$1200 all day long. Seems $5-600 can usually get you a decent boat, older motor and a ok trailer

I have 3 jons. 1 welded, two riveted. A rarely trap out of the welded. Ever try and unstick a heavy welded jon? No thanks. My welded jon only gets used for fishing nowadays.

Of course water depth, structure will depict what you go with.

And if you have to run jack plates, might be time to go with a mud motor. Burn a couple motors up and ruin the lower units and the lightbulb comes on pretty quick.

Jon and motor selection is all about matching it to the water you will be using it on.

Pros and cons to anything.

I looked forever on craigs list and only found ones I did not want. Used reverse osmosis and put an ad on craigslist looking for a jon boat and found just what I wanted for 100 bucks. Try it.

This might be way out of the ballpark, but they have paddle boats with mincota trolling motors on them, they are fun

Riveted boats are light enough to pull the rest of the way over a beaver dam if necessary. And quite a bit cheaper.

I had an older one. Quicha or something model from the 50's. Two dudes could sit on the gunwhale in the same spot and it wouldn't flip. I think the older boats were a little deeper and a little wider. My suggestion is to find one like that. I should have kept that thing but it was always in the way and I got a 1911 for it which was worth about three times what I paid for the boat so its gone now.

Good advice bowhunter27295. In my picture that plywood box on the front has a whole roll of baling wire in it. The box keeps it untangled. Pull off whatever you want from 5 inches to 50 feet. A box of traps or three-four wet beaver up there whatever is handy.