smoker craft

[Scott Gentry]

anyone have any expieriance with smoker craft boats? specifically a 1448 all welded a 2000 cant find specs from smoker craft on their sight
also anyone ever remove both bench seats from a jon boat have you had any twist or flexing problems?

 

[Jay Anglin]

I've taken bench seats out of semi-vees and I don't recommend it. There was lots of torsional flex. I would say that in a jon if you were just going to use it for minor applications like rowing or using an electric or really small outboard on smooth water go for it but on a river or bigger water I wouldn't chance it. Too much flex and I'd guess eventual weakening of the hull. I did it to beaters for marsh hunting in shallow water. Once I did it to use a 14 footer as a sled to haul decoys.

Other than the fact Smoker Craft were made about 3 blocks from high school I don't know much about them. Everybody around me had them and you still see the ones from the 80's and 90's but with all the mergers and buyouts I'm not even sure where they're made now.

 

[leslie riggan]

Cutting out the seats- It all depends on how much space is between your gunnells. Think about it, g3 and mudbuddy comes without seats. I opted to leave my rear seat my buddy didn't. We both have different boats, he has a triton and I have a alumacraft. Our distance between our gunnels are different. Mine are closer than his, he installed a gunnel he fabbed to take up the void. On my boat the distance was only 3 inches longer than the other gunnels. We both installed 1/2 marine ply floors the full length of the boats. These are semi permanently mounted. The wood floors eliminate the flex by tying it all together. I have a 25 merc 2 stroke on a 16 ft boat, he has a 40 yama four stroke on a 15 ft boat. Neither of us have experienced any cracking or stress fractures til date. Both of our boats are driven hard and very very frequently.

 

[Doug Engebo]

Scott,

I have a 18' smokercraft jon like on this website. http://www.stevensmarine.com/smkmodels.php There are some specs listed there as well. I have hunted and fished the Columbia River quite a bit with it and have had really good luck. These boats look a little different than my 2002, but not too much. All the seats were extra to buy, so I passed on them and built boxes that run down the sides. I tried to find a picture and apparently this is about as good as I could find. I made the blind out of copper and attached it with canopy clamps that fit perfectly over the gunnel. The "grass" hanging on the blind is baling twine that has aged nicely to fit my environment.

Doug
Longview Washington

 

[leslie riggan]

here are some pics of my boat first and my freinds boat

 

[Scott Gentry]

thanks guys im gonna go look at this after christmas i found a good setup for 1500 and i think im gonna pull the trigger on it