A Jon boat journey - Life and times, and mods, of a G3 river Jon.

[Texas Grown]

Hopefully I'll finnish getting the Livescope installed this weekend. Then it will have three removable Helix 10 and a Garmin 126 live scope. Still got to test the cooling system too.

The fish are biting and there's hogs to be kill-t. Gotta go!

[TeamAmerica]

Nice! You ain't gonna have time to fish with all that tinkering! Hope pondpopper doesn't see this.

[Texas Grown]

Nice! You ain't gonna have time to fish with all that tinkering! Hope pondpopper doesn't see this.

To windy for my lil boat today. And church at 11AM tomorrow. Pondpopper doesn't know what he's missing. So he'll just mostly keep missing, till he livescopes.

[AstroAg]

Awesome thread! I have a very old little jon boat that I found on our property. I'm working on getting it titled and then hopefully starting a DIY thread of my own, cause it sure does need some work! Lots of great ideas in here that I'll probably incorporate. Thanks for showing us!

[spidermonkey]

Glad this got brought back ttt Mike! That sure turned out nice! I did mine in a real similar way years ago, and those spool guns are HAAANNN-DEE!! Good Huntin, and God Bless, Rusty

[Texas Grown]

Thanks fellers. I think I finally got the OB run-n again (I think). Another VST pump may have been the culprit. I rebuilt the old one. But there are a few parts built into the pump housing that are not replaceable. I got it running in the driveway with the new pump. Just need to find the time to put it in the water to test. Got some wiring in the back cleaned up. And another battery cut-off switch installed for all the accessories. Also got the 2nd lithium battery for the Livescope and Blackbox, and Garmin 126 graph installed. Going to take the grandboys to Cinnamon Creek Ranch, this Saturday. And Sunday afternoon's weather is not looking very favorable. Maybe the weekend after, weather/wind permitting.


AstroAg, that's got a lot of potential.

[Texas Grown]

Updated running lights:

After a few years, and a very heavy rain on the last day of the 2022 duck season, I pulled my search lights (pic on post #8) out from under the removable deck a few weeks ago to find them full of water. I guess they had been full of water for a while cause everything in the back of the lights was rusted, including inside behind the bulbs.

[Texas Grown]

I decided to upgrade them to some high-powered LEDs by Blazer International. 2 spots in the middle. And one flood on each outside. Each light has four 5 watt LEDS. The spots will reach close to 1,000 feet. I also have these mounted to each side of the transom for backing down ramps in the dark.

The new lights up front are remote controlled. The floods are independent of each other on the outside row. And have the 2 spots wired together at the present in the center. I still have an empty channel if I decide to separate them. The receiver is in the green box mounted to the back of the housing unit. The extension and plug, plug into my troller outlet that runs on the 100 amp lithium battery. So, should be plenty of power when needed to get to the duck spot. Or back from fishing. I'll have a second lithium battery for when I do fish.

In case you are wondering what type of plug that is, it's made by Battery Tender. It's grooved so that once you start turning the handle, it pulls itself in line and in. It has been about the sturdiest troller plug I have found. And never has gotten any kind of loose. I'd very highly recommend for your next, if you want a quality construction.

[Texas Grown]

Front view.

[Texas Grown]

Back with waterproof housing for the remote receiver.

[Texas Grown]

Troller plug-in. I want to note that the plug can be wired inverted from it's current position. I On this application, the wires would be hitting the deck.

[Texas Grown]

And the remote that I keep in a plastic ziploc bag to waterproof.

[Texas_Gwala]

looks great