Advice needed on 12'-14' jon boat purchase.

[Texasmark]

That rig looks like my Lake John, wide and high sides.....great boat. Being aluminum and wide and flat bottomed, that 25 ought to push her along at 30 or so. Nice rig.

I had a Toyota, the small sized truck before they made the full size...forget the name. Made the rack from the tailgate to the front of the bed out of electrical steel conduit.....scraps from dumpsters I welded (learned how to weld) together.

I would drag the 10' boat up to the rear of the truck, turn it around, push it up close to the bumper and lift the bow up and onto the rack upside down. Then get on the stern and lift it the rest of the way with some of the weight being on the truck's rack. I was around 40 at the time, in good shape and it wasn't a walk in the park but not that hard.

I had deliberately purchased the 71/2 Merc. because it was light enough to not be a problem moving around.....the boat was pretty fast and I thought about upgrading to a 9.8 but that never materialized.

I probably had more fun getting back into protected waters with that boat for trot line fishing for Channel Cats and minnow fishing for Crappie. After a rain the cats would come up the little creeks from the lake. I'd get up early and go and run my lines before work, come home clean up and go to work. Then after work would be back at the creek. This action would last about 4 days after a good rain....it was over before you got tired of it. The Crappie fun was in the spring when they moved up the creeks to spawn.