Adding A Livewell Question

I'm ashamed to say it, but the jon boat in my possession right now is not tin but fiberglass. It is 12 feet long and it was too good of a deal to pass up. The question I have is if it is alright to drill holes in the bottom for getting water into the livewell. It has a lid over the livewell like it was supposed to be there, but it doesn't have any way for water to get in. The boat was built for the guy that owned it previously about 5 years ago. I'm not sure if the boat floats because of pockets of air in the seats, making it OK to just drill holes straight through the bottom of the livewell, or if there is air between two layers of fiberglass all around the bottom, making it not OK to drill the holes. Pictures will be up shortly, and ask if you don't know what I'm talking about. Any help is appreciated.

Here are the pictures.

Bump.

No one knows if it is alright to drill through?

Is the floor double-walled or a single sheet of fiberglass?

I don't know...Is there any way to tell?

Looks like there is a fiberglass plate running across where the channel would be located in the bottom of the livewell. Seems like this is more for dry storage than an actual livewell. Drilling thru this may cause you to open up the channel which could possibly allow water into the rest of your boat and not just your "Livewell"

We had an old boat that was fiberglass like this one. It had two holes on each side of the channel in the middle. It must have been single walled on the bottom, or at least designed to have holes for letting water into the livewell. I know that IF I do drill holes in this one not to do it over the channel.

I'm thinking that it is double-walled or whatever on the bottom and that I shouldn't drill the holes :?

Hmmmmm
Alright I got two sggestions for ya.
Drill the hole and if it is double walled with a void, then glass in a tube of aluminum. This would also be beneficial for being able to plug the hole.
Or
Mount a livewell pump in the rear and run some tubing to the livewell. You will still need to have a drain. Here is a pic of what I did to my drain to give you an idea (disregard the black tube)
Personally I would go with the second option as the pump will recirculate the water thus keeping the fish healthier.
This would be a fun project, to bad you are 2 hrs away. Just out of curiosity how heavy is that thing?

I once had a fiberglass fishing boat with a "dry" storage area almost identical to yours.

I copied the live well set up that was on my pontoon boat, and just attached a small 300-400 GPH Atwood bilge pump to the outside of my fishing boat's transom. I ran the tubing over the top of the transom, along the inside of the boat, and up to the upper edge of the storage area. Oh, it was so ugly!

I attached an adjustable spray head to the tubing and that was my livewell! Oh yes, I did enlarge the small bottom drain hole and plugged it with a transom plug.

I just let the water drain into the boat and out the boat's transom hull drain! I never got around to adding the necessary tubing to add an overflow before I sold the very ugly boat!

The only way I'd know to determine whether or not you have a single or double layered hull is to carefully drill a 1/32 or 1/16 hole in the top hull layer from inside of the storage area of the boat.

If the drill bit comes out the bottom...it's single layer. If you can insert a wire into the hull hole and you hit a second layer...then it must have two leyers. Of course, it's also possible you have hit a wooden stiffer! :shock: