New Tin Boat Owner

Sold my bass raider and bought my first tin boat this past weekend and I am stoked. Tho not new nor pretty, it was what I could afford. Picked it up for $700 (Hopefully I did not overpay). It is a 1969 Hexflite 14' jon boat. Came with a 1962 Gale Buccaneer 5hp tiller outboard, Minnkota All Terrain 33lb FC TM, 2 batteries, and some other boating items.

Wasn't able to find any info on the hull even after looking up HIN on the web. Is it because it's a pre-1972 boat? But the boat's size was similar to what I had in mind. Hull measures 14' long, 45" bottom, 65" beam, 19" sides, 16" transom. Boat has a small deck up front, carpeted benches, and removable floors. Seats are deterioating, but still usable. Both gas and TM in good operating condition. Trailer is solid, tires are still in great condition, bearings in good shape, but tongue is very short...makes backing up a headache for a novice.

First item on the list a trailer jack, then re-positioning the front seat further back and centered. No clue why prev owner placed the seat off to the side. Then will replace the outboard with my existing 5hp B&S. I plan to fish the boat as-is this season so I can figure what and how I want to mod it during the winter. From observing the mods on here, I have some great ideas....thanks to this site and you great guys. Sorry so winded...just jacked! Here are some pics...

:WELCOME: Thanks for joining!

Great looking boat! Looking forward to seeing it come to life. It looks like a solid boat already.

Very sharp looking boat! Nice find.

$700.00 sounds like a steal to me especially if everthing works. Now go catch some fish.

Thanks guys. You guys are too kind. I actually traveled from KC to Columbia, Mo to sell my plastic boat. Then to St. Louis to buy a fixer upper 16ft Lowe Big Jon. Got to STL in the evening and confirmed w/seller that I will come out first thing in the morn to buy boat. Woke up at 8 am and called the seller, but he already sold the boat the night before after we had spoken. #-o Kept second guessing myself that I should have went to look at the boat the night before and possibly put down a deposit to hold it, but then again I wasn't about to buy a boat in the dark.

Had a couple backup boats, but they were either overpriced, bad condition, or too narrow. Anyways, while at McD's I was doing a last minute ditch search effort on CL before I heading back to KC. Found this boat located in Edwardsville, IL, spoke to the owner and seemed worth taking a look. And the rest was history. Never towed a boat before, but towed it home 200+ miles in the rain, sleet, ice, and snow. Gained experience real quick. Things happen for a reason and for the best.

Nice Steal!!!

You are doing the right thing in waiting before you start modding. I changed the way I wanted to mod my boat 10 times since last August when I boat and started fishing out of my boat.

There are a lot of things you can do - the only thing I would do right now would be to move that front seat like you are talking about.

You may end up wanting to extend that front deck back just a little, and make a storage space between what deck is there now and the next bench back. I almost fall into the middle of my boat every time I go around my seat beacause the seat pedestal is set right on the very rear of the bench.

Nice boat, yeah, that seat gotta be moved, you could take a swim and the boat keeps going...

nice rig welcome

yea, I agree you did good. $700 for a rig, and everything in working order with a motor to spare. Enjoy your new boat!

Welcome!

You got a nice deal there. Like Russ said, move the seat and go use the boat for the rest of the year and you'll have a much better idea how you want it built out... though I know that's easier said than done

:WELCOME:

Nice rig for the $$. Like the others said, move the seat and go fishing.