I've been looking at some small duck hunting boats and realized I have 2 perfectly good canoes that could suffice. One of the canoes is a beater and I don't mind drilling or bolting things to it, any good ideas on how to stabilize it? I would like to add a 2hp Honda outboard and feel like some outriggers or minimally some sort of poles to shove in the mud when setup and hunting would be a good safety feature.

How long is it? 18' is fairly stable. 15' you may as well lay down and get wet as you're gonna tip over anyhow.
I'd build an outrigger on one side as a stabilizer.

Do what Red Green would do: Duct tape those canoes together!

Lash the two canoes together with 3 poles.
The Cree when travelling out on the James Bay in their big freighter canoes and get caught in bad rough water lash two or more together with poles.Even just two lashed together is way safer(stable).

I found the with of it has more to do with stability than length. I would put some outriggers on it and have a pipe or similar to shove pols into the mud when your inplace.

area I'm hunting is a shallow river and I need to get out and portage over a dam, lashing multiple canoes together is not workable. I cross two lakes then go over a dam and down the river to my favorite spot.

Doesnt sound like you need to stabilize a canoe in that area,then-(small water.)

You could make some sponsons. There are commercial kits available

I've been hunting/fishing in my 15 ft Old Town for 40 some years with no problems.
Might be cheaper/easier to just buy an old beater Jon Boat.

Not cheap but they work awesome.
Spring creek

I bet a clever guy could make something similar out of PVC pipe and Styrofoam blocks.

A local place has a nucanoe Frontier, it's ready for a motor already and you can supposedly stand on the gunnel without tipping it, I'm going to look at it this weekend. It would be far cheaper to outfit a Canoe but I feel like this may be better long term. With young kids at home I don't get to go on long hunting trips anymore, now I'm limited to quick local trips so ide really like to be setup well for it.

As others have stated. I would put the 2 horse on the canoe you want powered and tow the other behind until you reach your site and then lash them together to form a more stable raft type setup.

Bryce

Canoed for years and the first dunking came quick and scared the…..out of me. Pontoons after that!

I once built a catamaran out of 2 20’ old town canoes. Small outboard in the middle. Wife and I took it 400 river miles to the trapline for our honeymoon