John boats can't handle really shallow water because the prop is below the boat. So what if I welded (aluminum welding of course) a flat piece of aluminum sheet metal across the top and made a mount for the motor on top of that? That'a kinda the idea I'm running off of. Should I cut out a tunnel for the prop to sit in? I was planning on rhino lining the whole thing to keep the salt water from destroying it. The only other idea I have is getting some special polymers and plastic welding those together, then rhino lining that for reassurance and salt water protection. And it would look like a flats boat also.

2 words..........Jet drive.

I've used these in very very shallow water, knee deep and less, on the White River in Arkansas.

http://supremeboats.com/

There's shallow, pretty shallow, really shallow and spit.
What do you want to run in? Where do you want to run?

To us, knee deep is really deep. 4" is getting somewhat shallow, and 2" or less is the desired result.

A standard well setup tunnel hull can run in 4" all day long, takes a foot to get up, but up and going will run shallow.
My jet can run in less than 2" easy, less than that if it's a hard sand bottom.
Mud motors can run in zero water, as long as the mud is soft, but they fail in hard sand.
Air boats need zip.

Easiest conversion to "really shallow" is to just install a jet pump on your current motor, and set it up to run that way, no boat mods are required if that's what you want to do.

put a jack plate on it and jack the motor up,
get a heavily cupped prop and let er rip.

still wont work in "spit" as you have a skeg that deters you from being able to run super shallow.

Here's how you run shallow: NOTHING goes under the hull.



Here's how your run pretty shallow with a prop: Tunnel, jack plate, compression plate. Still have about 3" of skeg under the bottom, but it'll usually do.


And here's what happens when you think you're really snappy:

great pics and explanation Pat.
that will help a lot of guys right there.

Yes it did, thank you for your help again!

Pat Goff has probably forgotten more about running in shallow water than most of us will ever know. He IS the authority when it comes to setting up a skinny water boat.