red head,
This is indeed a small world. I, too am in North Idaho and I previously owned a 14' Hewescraft River Runner with 35 HP Evinrude outboard. I bought the boat from a guy that owned it for 20 years. He happens to be the Mudbuddy dealer up here in the Panhandle. He is a hunting partner and good friend of mine. In fact, when my Prodrive motor needs work (I recently converted it from short to tall transom operation) we do it in his shop.
The 14' River Runner is a classic boat. I see them periodically on craigslist and contemplate picking one up just to have as a little fishing rig with an outboard. Your issues with that boat, if you put a mud motor on it, will be twofold. First, I'll be about the 6th person on this thread to say that mud motors are heavy s.o.b.s, especially the short tail ones. You would have to look at a "Lite" model (Mudbuddy makes one) or go with a longtail to keep the weight down. Second, that boat is, I think, .080 aluminum. That is not very thick. Shallow water boats are most frequently constructed of .100 or .125 thickness aluminum. If you get into the spirit of going where you previously could not before, you will bang that hull up pretty good and you'll hook it, eventually robbing speed. It all depends on what you would like to do. Are you just buying this motor to be able to power through milfoil, or do you want to pick your way through the rocky Clark Fork Delta when Avista drops the level 11' (like we do
)? Or bust ice in Cougar Bay? If it's the latter two activities, I think a true mud boat is ultimately in your future. If you want to ride in a mud motor boat, mine is sitting on Hayden Lake right now. I have a Prodrive short tail on a Phowler hull. I have been running mud motors on every boatable hunting area in North Idaho since 2004 and I can tell you that there is no punishment a boat of this caliber will not handle.
I'm sure my buddy can also run you around in his Mudbuddy / Excel rig.
PM me if you would like to pick my brain further on the subject.