This 14' long 70" wide flat bottom river john boat was given to me by my grandpa Ronald Nelson. It was set for pan fishing and worked great! But, I had different plans...plans to make bass fishing easier and more efficient!

The old john boat worked good, but as always... it can be made better!

Once the boat was completely gutted, we went to work on making a floor support frame out of rectangle aluminum tube.

The use of a 1/4 diameter pneumatic rivet gun allowed us to fasten the aluminum trusses to the boat gussets fast and easy.

Two trusses were used to support the front deck.

Vertical front supports done.

1"x1" aluminum square tube was used to distribute the front deck load along with allowing deck access hatches to be made.

Close up on frame construction

Continued progress on front deck framing

Seat post bracket, hatch supports and the front deck pedestal additions

I decided to make a raised front pedestal to house any electrical wires running to and from the nav lights, trolling motor, fish finder, and 12V outlet

A support frame was also made for the rear deck out of aluminum and then all decks were made with 3/4" thick marine grade plywood

3/4" Marine grade plywood cut to fit.

The lower floor portion was covered in bed-liner for long lasting protection

Cutouts for a stereo, speaker, switch panel, and 12V outlet.

After sealing each piece of plywood with 2 coats of marine grade paint, each deck board was carpeted using marine contact cement to hold the boat carpeting down.

View of the front deck after the carpeting was detailed

Turned out pretty darn good!

My old man had this great idea for rod storage

Done! Took 10 days (5 weekends) and roughly $1200