Weld-Craft First Boat

I stumbled on this forum looking for tips on buying and installing marine speakers and I was overwhelmingly impressed with the amount of amazing boats and information offered! My brother and I recently got our first boat and have been hooked on fishing the Gulf Coast bayous and cruising the rivers/bays. Inspired by the content on this forum, I decided to share our little projects and boat experiences. I can't wait to continue learning from you wonderful people and sharing the love of being on the water!

Since we just bought the boat several months ago, I've only managed a few minor upgrades so far but I'm excited to continue adding things here and there.

Nice, on all counts.

I thought Reds liked the Fleetwood Mack Rumors album. :lol:

Welcome from a fellow Weld-Craft owner.

Looking forward to seeing the progress!

Thanks everybody! I'm excited to learn some tips from all the experts here. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac is one of my favorite albums nowgrn4, Dreams was on the playlist we were playing on the river today! My brother and I were raised on that kind of music, and I've heard Stevie Nicks was not too bad lookin back in the day...

I saw her in a show a while back. She aint bad looking old too.......

We've been wanting to add a solid deck between the middle seat and the casting deck so I followed the lead of BigTerp and began making a template out of cardboard. Today I'll be using hot glue to hold the pieces together a bit better prior to laying it out on the wood. I currently plan on using 1/2" thick plywood coated with poly for the wood, if anyone has any input on the wood to use please let me know!

We are also ordering this foam/rubber deck covering from Gator Trax that we will be putting overtop the wood and casting deck. A friend from work who used this on their boat gave me a swath of the material and it seems like exactly what we need to cover the deck and keep the aluminum from burning the heck out of our feet! I also needed to install ONE more cupholder for the bow of the boat, who wants to keep walking back and forth on the boat when the thirst for a cold beer/water hits!?? Since we've been catching a ton of redfish, I painted a redfish design on this one.

If anyone has any input or tips on which wood to use for this deck, or what type of sealant to use to coat the wood, please drop me a comment! My brother and I are currently waiting for the rain to clear up so we can go catch us some dinner!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!!

Looking nice! Aluminum flooring for my Weld-Craft has been sitting in my garage for months now. I need to install it. I have some hydroturf like that on my casting deck. Love everything about it but the price. Make sure you get the hydroturf with adhesive backing.

Good deal, thanks DrNip. This stuff comes with 3M adhesive backing so we should be good to go. It's kind of pricey but seems like it will be worth it.

Congrats on the new boat. What size is it?

The boat is 14'-1/2" from stern to bow and has a 5'-1/2" beam. We're currently waiting to order the gator trax and install the deck. In the meantime it's fishing, cruising, and enjoying the boat!

Nice ride. I have the Hydroturf on my WeldCraft 1656 and love it!

We finally found time to cut out the deck and put on the Gator Trax. We used 1/2" marine grade plywood and purchased the hyrdo turf from Gator Trax. After taking it to the car wash for a bath, we used denatured rubbing alcohol to clean all the surfaces. We made cardboard templates for almost everything we cut out and put down Super 77 3M adhesive spray glue before we laid in the hydro turf. With a little patience everything turned out super clean. Although it's fairly pricey, the hyrdo turf from Gator Trax is an excellent product and we highly recommend it. Taking it out for a test spin!

Nice install on the HydroTurf. If you get another tin down the road, Hydroturf has a "B-Stock" selection that can save you money. The pattern you got from Gator Trax can't be found on HydroTurfs site though. I think they make the pattern just for Gator Trax. Here is the link for the B-Stock stuff. Its usually half the price.

https://hydroturf.com/products/Closeouts_and_Specials/Sheets_of_Turf

It's been a while since we checked in, no real upgrades to the boat since the gator trax besides a little rod holder to keep our backup polls out of the way.

Today was the first "cold" day of fishing for us on the Gulf Coast and we weren't sure what to expect. We ended up finding a hot spot and were reeling them in one after the other. We ended up with 6 keepers that'll make for good eating tonight with some friends and also caught another 6 or so undersized reds. Great Day!!

Great report, nice job!