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I think you should really consider buying something a bit larger. (boat)

I'm with AB, I'd be a little skittish about using a 36" wide boat. If you will only be in small creeks and ponds, you could get by ok, but two to 3 people in a narrow boat like that, especially if jumping up to shoot at the same time, will be downright dangerous. If you are just using it as a means to get to a spot where you will have your feet on the ground, or the boat will be sitting on the bottom, you could get by.........be sure you are wearing your pfd, that water is cold this time of year!

One year I hunted and camped at Sangchris Lake over by Taylorville, Illinois.
Three guys in a 14-36 were there and there was a huge gang of people begging them to not do it.
Long story short they lost everything that day and we had to rescue them
You'll be fine. Buy the biggest heaviest most powerful engine that will bolt onto your boat.
Get a floating gun case at least.

Seriously I'd put a 15-horse carb on your 9.9 johnnyrude and call er done.
I get 20 mph on my 16-40 with a Johnson 15.

My first boat was a 14-48 mv which is what you need. 1542 mv is the one I wish I had.

Sorry DS, wasn't trying to be a dick........have had some eventful (as in asshole tightening) moments in a skinny boat like yours
Would look at the weight difference between your 9.9 and both of the long tails, and gauge from there.

I run a Go-Devil 16'x38" with their Vanguard 16hp, which is plenty of power with just three men and a dog. (Though a fourth man turns it into a barge.) So I'd think an 18hp plenty of power for your little bateau.

I'm not familiar with the 18 you're looking at, but our camp also has the 22hp Harbor Freight Predator on another boat, and while some praise them, ours has been troublesome from the git-go. Will need to replace the starter solenoid or whole starter, if I've read their parts schematic correctly after less than a season of service, and have also had to pitch the sticky solenoid valve (anti-backfire?) in the carburetor.

One more thought: my Go-Devil has their somewhat shorter (don't know how much and don't feel like driving to the camp to measure) "crawfish" version long tail which is much handier than their standard length long tail. Don't have to fight trim and maneuvers tighter.

Google says "479cc".

Ah. Mud flat. You can run whatever you want there until you get stuck then just step out an start pushin'.
If you only knew how much I pushed my boat two seasons back.
I figured there was some little detail like "where the boat will be used" that would come around and bite me inna azz.

Up here there are these nuclear power plant cooling lakes that are sort of designed to be high up where wind can catch the water for cooling purposes. They get rough with 5' waves sometimes bigger. The kind of stuff that makes your motor hit bottom between waves. That's some scary chit right there. Completely different environment. I saw you're from Louisiana but could not just assume you're running relatively tame waters. I think I'd stay away from the coast.

I wish I had a mud motor because the flats at Clinton are just a bit too shallow for me as it's set up today. Watching the guys with mud motors buzz by at 30 min before LST makes me extremely jealous.

By the way welcome to waterfowlforum.net.

You could pay that off with the crawfish in your yard.

Rick wrote:You could pay that off with the crawfish in your yard.

SouthLADuckSlayer90 wrote:Lol, im surrounded by crawfish ponds. There are hundreds in my yard.

Sections of my yard are covered with those mounds.

Our farm near Effingham, Illinois is crazy with crawdad humps. For kicks we got a neighbor with a backhoe to start digging and see how deep they go. At 20 feet we decided to stop. It was a big hole.
It's amazing how deep they go.

Do they dig up to get out or down to get wet? That's a mystery to us yankees.

Rick wrote:One more thought: my Go-Devil has their somewhat shorter (don't know how much and don't feel like driving to the camp to measure) "crawfish" version long tail which is much handier than their standard length long tail. Don't have to fight trim and maneuvers tighter.

Finally got curious enough to look it up, and Go-Devil lists the crawfish tail at 58" vs the standard long-tail's 72". That 14" makes a world of handling difference in my experience.