casting deck on jon boat

[samiam]

any one ever put a deck on their jon boat. i am getting ready to do mine and any suggestions, comments, pics, ect. would be greatly appreciated.

[BIRD NEST]

I had a 14 foot Polarcraft jon boat and put a deck on it, best thing I ever did. I'll try to get you some pics. It had some ribs going up the sides so I used those to screw some 2x2 treated lumber and form a frame and then deck it out. Think I used some cardboard to make a pattern for the deck. Jig saw will be your best friend. I mounted my trolling batt. under the deck permanantly, to hard to reach way up in there and drag it out, but could still reach in and hook charger cables. Batt. being up front balanced the boat out because of gas engine in back. But if you want batt. in back run you some romax back there. Yea that deck will give you a place to put life jackets etc. and free up your floor. Tell ya what i did also and you might not want to do, but I was desperate, I cut a square hole bout 12x24 inch in the middle bench, dug the floatation foam out and made a door out of some plywood, put a couple heavy duty hinges on it and had a compartment that held all my tackel. Then put some seat pedastal bases and your set. They also make a bracket for the rear bench so you can mount a seat without drilling holes. Your boat may be differant than mine but maybe that will give you some ideas.

[gone fission]

I would build it as low (allow 3 - 4" for pin pedestal) to the hull as possible. I have built / rebuilt 5 jon decks now on 14' to 19' boats. Used to like the high decks for bass. Now I'd rather have a low or drop down deck for crappie. I got 3/16" 4X8' sheets of diamond plate aluminum from junk yard along with some angle and C channel and mounted all with rivits. May be better if you gotta welder, but my last job hasn't come loose yet in 9 yrs of use.

The only time I like a high deck is flippin for bass, otherwise keep it low.

[fishing buddy]

Gone fishing got it right, center of gravity comes to play dont want it to be to tipsy.

[samiam]

thanks for the replies so far. my boat is 16 feet long and five feet wide at the front.

[stinkies daddy]

Im 260 lbs keep the deck low, or plan on swimmin a lot

[FroggerZack]

There is a jon boat forum somewhere on the net that I visited once. It has a wealth of information on it about decks and other modifications. If I were you I would look it up.

[crappiepants]

check out myjonboat.com

I didnt buy the book but i got tons of ideas just looking at the different pictures on that website. The main thing i would do is figure out what height you want the deck and lays some boards down at that height and try it out first. Dont wanna get the deck to high and risk it being tipsy. I really enjoyed doing mine and almost bought another jon boat just so i could do it agian.

[Barnacle Bill]

Check with Panman on the Virginia forum. He made a lot of mods to a jon boat he had and has pics of it.

[Ronnie]

If you jon boat is 5 feet wide at the front you don't have a boat, you have an aircraft carrier. If you are going to crappie fish mainly, I'd mount a pedestal seat to the floor or bench seat and not construct a deck. You'll be more comfortable without the deck. Just my opinion.