Finally found the boat I wanted..... BUT I didn't have the money all up front so I went halves with my buddy under a contract to buy it out (which he didn't care bc he just bought a boat 2 days before lol). We bought a 17' Xpress with a 60/40 jet, it came with a 9.9 and 55lb thrust trolling motor as well. We may make some mods to open up the floor plan a little more but so far its a flat out beast with just two people in it. My buddy bought a 16' flat bottom that is going to turn into our field/mud boat. We are cutting the middle sit out tonight, putting a new sheet of aluminum in the middle over top the braces to reinforce it. Then we are cutting the front mini platform out and building a large platform/storage area back to the first brace. As well as reinforcing the rear where the batteries and gas tank will be with 1/4" and finally reinforcing the transom since it has a hole drilled through it. He's also going to put steel flex or gator hyde on it to make the bottom slick as snot. Then we have a buddy building us a 6.5 hp long tail for $400 to throw on the back so that we can hunt flooded fields with it. Should make for two nice setups to hunt in any situation this up coming season.
