New Toy - Summer Project (Pic Heavy)

Found a steal on a 1984 Mon Ark 15' aluminum boat. Not the prettiest thing at first but for $1200 my buddy and I saw the potential. The '84 mariner 25 needed a very small carb adjustment, and two new spark plugs and it fired right up! Already been on several fishing trips but its real job is to be a bona-fide duck boat. We're working on how to rig up a blind. I will add pics as we upgrade. The name? SizeMatters

The day we bought her



Stripped and first layer of paint

Second Layer of paint. Used weeds as a negative stencil with black camo paint over the first tan layer. Worked well i think



Did the same thing on the inside

New floors and carpet. Used the original hatch frames for the front live wells. The back deck is two big hatches for easy access to the batteries/gas tank/etc.

Painted the trailer, added new camo seats, and hooked up the trolling motor.



Maiden Voyage.. took the girlfriend out for a quick fishing trip at the lake

First saltwater experience. Makes a great flounder rig and gets across the bay great with two people and our gear

Cruisin the lake with the gf


Since these pics were taken I've added a through-transom aerator for the live wells, 600 gph bilge, and LED utility lights. Next on the to-do list is to build a removable duck blind. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated!

My favorite Projects are Boat Projects. You done Good!

Great job, it looks real nice

great job

Nice deckhand

Looks awesome! That carpet is going to be tough to keep clean in duck season though!

Looks good.

I hope you're right! The redder the better!

you did a good job on that boat man

Need to camo motor next!

Nice work.

Looks good!

Came out great.

Nicely done

Love boat projects! Looks great, should make an awesome dual purpose boat.

Looks great.

Nice pair of yettis; and a beautiful young lady, to go ahead and state the obvious.

Anyway, I bought a new '82 Mariner 25 (in '82), for use on 14' deep/wide Alumacraft, tiller drive. It was the best-running rig for its' size that I've ever owned. The new Suzukis now are supposed to be powerful, and they are. But that Mariner that I had would literally bring the boat right out of the water, and Im talking about loaded with guns shells dog decoys and two 200lb guys in waders. Looks like that rig is working well for you, also. Nice job.

Aaaaand how!

Somehow this boat is rated for up to 80 hp. When i saw that i immediately started thinking about the possibilities. but when i took her out for the first time i was blown away by that little 25 hp. Single carb 2 cyl. 2 stroke. With just me and a cooler itll jump right out of the hole and runs 26-27 mph top end on gps. With my my huntin buddy and my gf and the full big yeti it will still get up and run 18-19 mph.

Only problem with the motor is the gear selector shaft broke the other day so there is no neutral or reverse. When you start the motor it is automatically in drive. Does anyone have any experience with this? Looks like the whole motor has to come apart to fix it.

Looks nice, good job.

How did you strip the old paint? Is there anything special you have to do to paint an aluminum hull?

Looks nice, good job!

I used a drill and a wire brush paint stripper bit (it took 2 of them). I spent about half a day just stripping old paint and decals. after that the finish was about perfect for paint. I didn't use primer or anything.. just the camo spray paint in khaki black and drab green. After all said and done, it cost me about $50 to strip and paint the whole boat and trailer.

Does not even look like the same boat. Nice work!

Thanks for all the compliments! I want to build a collapsible/removable duck blind for the boat.. if anyone has any tips or ideas please let me know!

Been hunting our spots here in the Central Texas area so far this year. Time to get down to the coast. We have a few blinds built down there, but in case we want to hunt a different spot, I built a blind for the boat.

Used 3/4" PVC for the frame. Two eye screws on each side of the pipe with a bolt as a hinge. 20X15' camo netting (cut in half length-wise and zip tied to the frame). Frame pops up and clipped together with para-cord and carabeaners. Last step is brush it in with my palm leaf collection (can't forget the leather work gloves)! I have some metal conduit piping to drive in the ground and hold the boat in place. Frame folds down and camo netting wraps up nicely. What do yall think?

Very nice set up DC1985. Now let's see some kill pics.

Would have had some from this weekend but.. I blew a bearing on the trailer in Stockdale. Had to leave it at a motel and drive to Floresville to get new bearings. Luckily the Autozone there was still open and I got what I needed and got it fixed. By the time it was all said an done it was too late to even try to get down there to hunt. Plus I didn't trust my roadside bearing job to make it down to Corpus and back so I just turned around and headed home. Great weekend... Guess it could've been worse!

That really sucks. Sorry for the bad luck. . Limits next time.

Show more pics of the girlfriend.

Man you got that one RIGHT!

Love the boat, especially after yoh decorated it with a hot girlfriend, I freakin hate trailers-bearings-trailer tires.

haha yea it's safe to say I out-kicked my coverage with this one. Sometimes a guy just gets lucky.. She's definitely a keeper!

Great job on that build!

Looks Great.

Boat looks good too. Nice Camo