AA widgeon question

E

Earnie

Member
I have recently acquired and rehabed an 1984 Arthur Armstrong wigeon, but now have a dilemma with an engine choice. Since I will be hunting mainly shallow creeks and rivers I want to buy a shallow drive motor but am not really sure what weight I can get away with. Has anyone used one of these motors on this type of boat. The Mud Buddy that I have been looking at can weigh from 125# to 165#. I am wanting to be sure to have the max HP that is possible due to the swift current of the places that I hunt, and with the propeller running half out of the water it does not have the thrust to hp ratio of a traditional outboard.If anyone could help me with this would be most appreciated.
 
Have you called Arthur Armstrong and asked about their recommendations for motors? That would be my first stop. I used to own a AA Wigeon and it was a good boat with an outboard. Not a good hull for a Mud motor in my opinion. I put a 9 hp go-devil on it just to try it. Lots of weight on that boat for the transom. There was some issue with the combing around the cockpit with the motor or the handle when you tried to put the motor in nuetral. The handle on the mud motor did not work out well being in the cockpit to run the motor. I do not know how I would have mounted a grad bar to run it standing up. It is not a flat bottom hull it is a shallow V. The hull in front of the false floor is not very heavy and will not take much abuse. Shallow creeks and rivers sounds like a cracked hull to me if you run it in to something. I do not like to use my mud motor in what I would call swift current, they do not turn like an outboard.
 
I have a wigeon that I use on the tidal creeks of Delaware Bay. I use an outboard (9.9 Merc) and that is about as much as I want on it. That motor weighs 90-100 lbs. The front of the hull can be weak. Mine had cracked up there, and I cut out the the cracked section then made a steel brace for the keel, filled it with some epoxy putty, and glassed over it. It is now very strong. Unless you have to have a mud motor I would stay away from it. My boat cruises between 15-20 mph with me and the dog and gear, and is very maneuverable. I think you are going to lose that with a mud motor. But if you are in soft mud, I am sure you can move that boat across it. I have poled my boat across mud when I had the tide run out on me. You don't want to hit a stump or anything though, like mentioned above, that hull is not built for that.
 
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