I have to travel a few miles of big water to get back into the area's I hunt. The last 1/2 mile or so of water is usually 2' - 4' deep with sand and soft mud bottoms. My 1648 boat with two people, all of the necessary gear and a 40hp outboard on the back, will float back there no problem but getting back there using my trolling motor takes forever. I was planning on hanging my 6.5lt on the back along with the 40 and when the water gets to shallow for the outboard, tilt it up then swing the small lt into action. Does anyone see any problem with this idea?

I think its a great idea.....

More importantly,

I have a 1648 and was wondering about a 40hp. How does it run on it? Did you do any extra bracing on the transom? Got any pics of it hanging off the back of the boat? Any idea how much that 40hp weighs?

If it's two feet deep with a unvegitated bottom, you need a good jackplate and a set of balls.

Seriously, a 6.5 won't be much better than a trolling motor and if it gets so shallow the hull starts to touch bottom the 6.5 don't have the umph to push all that.

The jack plate and balls sounds good in theory but the problem is....they water is pretty narrow, so I can't go flying in there and take a chance of running over another hunter at 4 in the morning. I'm not looking for speed, just propulsion and guess if we get stuck, we'll get out and push.

Surely you can idle back there if the motor is raised up, is it a canal or are there high spots?

I put the boat in a lake, run the outboard about half way into a cove then the water gets shallow. The cove shallows up to about 2 feet but then it turns into a creek which narrows up and deepens up alittle. Then it widens out and gets shallow again and it does this for about 1/4 of a mile. So I would need to raise and lower the outboard plus I don't want to take a chance of sucking up some trash into the water pump and frying the engine. I would love to have a mud rig but can't justify the cost and there aren't that many places up here where I could really use one.

where ya located at sfthull ?

SC

get a pirogue

just run it and see how it is

An update on this old post. I ran the lt and it moved the boat through some shallow water, but not very fast at all. I think my trolling motor will move it faster. I has my wife, two batteries, trolling motor, fuel, fishing gear and a 40hp hanging off the back so needless to say, its a heavy rig for the little lt. Has anyone ever put a small lt on a pirogue?

Just run that 40 horse and don't let off, you oughhta make it