Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Need Mud Motor Advice

I have a friend that wants to put a mud motor on his 16 foot jon boat. He will have it full of goose decoys and will need to travel up the North Platte river about 1/4 mile. No mud or grass to worry about, just shallow water. He doesn't care about speed, he just wants to be able to make it up the current. He also said he wants the motor to have reverse.

I think the surface drive motors will be out of his price range so he's been looking at the long tail motors.

I've looked online at a lot of different motors but would like some advice from anyone that has used them. Thanks.

Harbor Freight Predator motor with a long tail is the cheapest solution but I don't think it will have reverse.

Outboard with pontoons and a jack plate are another solution.

Elk, I have many thousands of river miles using mud motors, both surface drives and longtails.


One decent deal, is a backwater swomp lite kit shipped from Jake gilk at backwater. For that size boat, at 23hp motor should be about right. A Honda gx 690 is an affordable one to try.

https://www.backwaterinc.com/about.html

https://www.backwaterinc.com/swomp-motor-kits.html

Thank you gentlemen for the information and advice. He really wants reverse on the motor so it's looking more like he will have to pony up for a surface drive.

I have a Backwater long tail with a Honda 9 hp. I use it on my 19 foot freighter canoe. No reverse. I don’t know of any long tail with a reverse. I had a 27 hp Go Devil and it didn’t have reverse.

Reverse is highly overrated on a light boat. A set of oarlocks will save you a thousand dollars and get you back home when Sh-t Happens.

Put at least a third more HP in a surface drive than an outboard.

I built a 18 HP surface drive for my carp shooting/duck hunting/fishing boat. Great rig but should have gone 5 HP more as it won't match the performance of the 15 HP outboard that was on it. It does shine in shallow brush filled reservoirs, reverse doesn't work in the brush either.

A collapsible duck bill push pole should be mandatory in a shallow water boat also.

A well set up surface drive is a pleasure to operate, much like a tiller outboard, a long tail can be a chore.

Before


After

IMO- regardless of what is done, get a quality
push pole with a mud foot.
If you ever need it once, you'll understand
why I say that

Great advice from all of you. Thanks!