Older Lund Boat - Flooring

[MJBaldwin]

Alright guys I go a question for you...

Here is my deal my grandpa is going to let me take over the old fishing boat I think it is eather a 14' or 16' with (4) benches with foam inside of those. Decent fishing boat in my mind as he put a 25hp Yamaha 4 Stroke on it. we have put a floor in it before but it was a floor for the two sections and then one that covered the front to so we had some storage area up there. I am just wondering if anyone has converted this style with a little bit better of a floor maybe rod lockers on the side or livewell if not I will just have to stick with what we have already thought of...

Please let me know

Thanks Guys

Mike

[marine_man]

Do a search in this forum for this very topic... there have been several very well detailed mods completed exactly as you're looking for.

I think jwmiller33 is one guy who did a very nice job.. search for his posts using the search tool.

marine_man

[benjineer]

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[hamms-scooter]

I second jwmiller33's boat mods! Great job!

[jwmiller33]

MJBaldwin-I absolutely LOVE the older Lund aluminum style boats (the ones from the 70s, 80s and early 90s). They are not nearly as fancy as the newer boats and you will always have guys blowin past you in their fancy boats, but you can do many modifications to your boat to make it much more practical and efficient for fishing, and put many more fish in the boat!

The floor is key, as it is the foundation to ANY aluminum boat modification process. This is what my boat looked like when I first got it.

The first thing I did was tear out all of the old wood. I replaced it all with new marine plywood (I believe I used 1/2"). Save the old pieces as wood as you will trace them for cutting the new pieces of wood. I then and went bought some outdoor carpeting from Menards and used glue and a staplegun to wrap all of the new marine plywood in carpet. It helps to have a extra set of hands for this process.

The next thing I did is remove the middle bench. It wasn't serving a practice purpose and I gained sooo much more room in the middle of the boat by removing it. I do a lot of sturgeon fishing and trolling leadcore, and when I have 3 guys in my boat, you want all the room possible for when you have a fish on (it can get kind of clustered in a small 16ft boat, but thats part of the fun of fishing!). Some guys will tell you that removing the middle bench can cause stability issues in the boat but I have never had any problems, neither has a buddy of mine who did the exact same thing on his 14ft Lund.

The next best thing to do in these types of aluminum boats is to add a casting deck/front storage deck up front. This can easily be done with a skill saw and 2 or 3 2x4s. I used marine plywood on the bottom of the front storage deck, so I could have everything in the storage be up off the floor incase water gets in the boat. Also, the plywood floor helped me in the use of putting in verticle 2x4 supports for the front casting deck. Here is what the structure part looked like for my storage/casting deck. The 3 main support beams run between the nose bench and the other bench, and I used big bolts in all connections of supports, so it is extremely well built. Have had 2 guys standing up there numerous times and you don't hear as much as a squeak from the structure.

I custom fit a spot to put a deep cycle battery in the storage area. Having that extra battery weight up front really helps the boat get on plane. As I'm sure you know, it is easy to be extra back heavy in terms of weight on these Lund boats b/c of the gas tank, usually a battery for the trolling motor, etc. The battery in my front storage powers my Humminbird depth finder/GPS and it also power my navigation lights (bow and stern) as well as a 12 LED floor light.

I did all the wiring for the graph and the nav and LED lights. It is nice to know exactly how everything is set up and built/wired in your boat, so if something goes wrong, you know exactly where to look to fix the problem.

These pictures of my boat are from over a year ago, and I have added a few more modifications this year. I added a front and rear anchor cleat (the kind you zig zag the rope thru so you dont have to constantly retie). The anchor cleats were a must after a month of sturgeon fishing on the croix in 30+ fow.

I also have 4 rod holders mounted on the side of the boat, another great and easy thing to add onto these older Lund boats. They are usually about $20 at Cabelas and you can mount them with a small piece of 2x4 to get the clearance to the gunel.

I also recently did a modification with velcro, to secure all of my tackleboxes next to me in the boat, but they are up and out of the way. Very nice to not have my big tacklebag taking all the room up on the floor in the boat, and having all of tackle within an arms reach.

[jwmiller33]

If you look in the lower right hand corner of the last pic, you can also see two of the 4 rod holders I made out of pvc piping at work. It took about 5 minutes to do and it is great for having some vertical rod storage in the boat. These are not the same 4 rod holders I mentioned previously (those are the ones you can use for trolling and whatnot). I highly recommend copying something similar to the 2 rod holders you can see in the lower right hand corner of the last pic. It is kind of hard to get any type of rod storage on these older aluminum boats, but this is one thing I have found is useful.