I shut my rig off and use a push pole if sets are real close.

A longtail is afraid to vibrate when Rambo holds it...

your better 0ff in 14 ft than a 12, the extra lenght will let ya plane up a little more than the shorter boat......let the water tell ya what to run, v or jon.....there is nothing wrong with a v really and for most part they are tougher.....lotta that mudmotor,com talk is about irrelevent to trappers.....all welded flat bottom yada yada....many rivers ive trapped there is no boat ramp and you aint gonna get one of those heavy things in the water to begin with....kinda like the jeep rock crawler crowd, what they run for ulimate climbing aint relivant to most offroad crowd as ya cant hardly drive a rock crawler rig down the highway......be careful some the lightest flimzyest joh boats, you can run a log right thru the hull or tear off transom if ya tried hard enough.......if your running a small under 10 hp, especially smaller like a 6.5, you aint got enough HP to worry about ulimate boat design, top end speed, etc....to a degree really.

If your on big water be careful with a small skinny jon, throw 150 lbs of mudmotor on it, then add weight like a trapper, where max payload rating is a understood to be a good starting point, throw some 2 ft rollers out there you can end up being some good crappie fishing structure....sometimes motoring mile and 1/2 along reedline in 3-4 ft of water, is the smarter thing to do than the 1/2 mile run across 25 ft of water

Les take that 6.5 and hop it up like the gokart komakazi fantazy indy driver crowd does, they say they can get 14 hp outta a 6.5, and get ya one of them new hongkong chopstick surface drives with a sewer snake flexible driveshaft, and get'r done!!!.....id advise wearing level 3 body armour and kevlar helmit, so when the sewer snake driveline fly apart from being ran 4x the rpm they are designed for, your ready for it.....couse some guys like scars....when the ole barroom who got the coolest scar talk comes up the "heres the one i got when they had to pull the alum mudmotor prop outta my forehead" would be hard to beat....LOL

Couple G worth of mudmotor hanging off back of boat, and you want to PADDLE?.....SACRILEGE!!!!

I get (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) off if i gotta pick up the dam push pole more than twice.......LOL

When you got a feeder flat, or toilet every 20' or closer, you grab the push pole. I love them honey pockets.

I plan on the free flow air filter, Robertson torque tube/and muffler, and rejet my 6.5 to get the most out it while keeping close to stock. If you buy the SPS rig, there is a good online forum for owners that has a lot of info about the subject of SPS rigs/makes/and builds . I wouldn't build the screamer for my rat rig, but I would free up the "flow" of air and fuel. There is an adjustable jet for my rig, I hear.

In a way, I wish my little Monkey wards type boat was all it is but 2' longer and that light...then I would up the hp a little .

42" beam x 14' and it is a shallow boat, nothing you would go a half mile over 25' of water with a load in on questionable rough water .

Electric start I motor to bout everything, even the other side of the hut

Heck I wanna find a way to motor from the back, to the front of the boat

Me too, but for now I'll keep working at it. I will say that if you start and kill, start and kill, your 6.5 predator all the time...it does suck to not have an extra rewind rope with you when that breaks after starting in 40 times when the rope was getting stranded, thinking it would hold for one more start. There is no 6.5 with electric.

Briggs makes one Les....also there are some lifetime superbraid starter ropes out there now

My motor runs pretty much the entire time I'm on the water. I can't think of a time when I've used my push pole over my motor to set traps.

Calvin, do you have center council or tiller steering ?

Tiller, Les. We all trap different body's of water. I'm just trying to figure out the differences here, I guess.

Got the ultimate push pole: duckbill on the end of a pole vault pole. At times I do let the motor run. Got a rope tied to the floor strut with a loop tied on the other end. Slip the handle of the motor through the loop and it can run with the prop out of the water. The oars are for a bit longer distances than the push pole. You guys remember oars, right?

You guys remember oars, right?

Remember burning them good riddance the day I bought my first motor......

I thought maybe I had seen surface drive, power trim, and center consul once in a pic.


I remember oars, and I carry a pair, along with a push pole, and my handle is balsam fir, and 30 years old too . I tie down my running motor similar to how Muskrat does it .

Les, I think maybe I saw one of those on Swamp People or something, too.

I always keep oars in the boat as well. Had a bad shaft snap on me last spring... with a dozen beaver and a load of traps and rebar in the boat. Oars and oar locks can save your butt in some cases.

If that ever happened to Rich he'd just shrug his shoulders, mutter a few expletives, throw a bow line out, strip down to his skivvies, jump overboard, and drag that boat from hut to hut! The man is a beast!!!

Balsam fir is super light, lol. And common . You should see the handles on my line up of garden tools.