I'm new to MMT and joined to get educated to surface drive motors. I'm looking to purchase a duck boat and the advantages of powering it with a surface drive motor appear to be greater than an outboard. With that said I would like some feed back from my northern brothers on how well they perform in cold climates. What make and model do you recommend? Any info will be appreciated.

Dixie mud motors

If you don't read a larger number of the posts concerning mm scattered all over this forum, you will hate it, it won't run worth a crap, and you'll wind up with the wrong setup. Don't crap on all the useful info people have taken the time to write here. Search the reviews section, and the forum as a whole, and you'll find exactly the answers you're looking for.

I live in Muscatine Iowa, been running surface drives since 2004. We run them on the Mississippi from Ice up to Ice out. We use them for both fishing and hunting. We hunt ducks and deer on a very shallow sandy Cedar river, and found the only way to our hunting grounds were with air cooled shallow running motors. Outboards have water pump problems and lower unit problems, when operated on the Cedar. My son runs a Excel F4 1851 with a MudBuddy HD 7000. We use it when River starts Icing up, cuts The Ice better than mine. I run a MudBuddy Black Death 4500 on a Alumacraft 1648 Standard Jon. Scary fast and light enough to go over some very shallow water. If you are in Ill. M&M Marine in Savanna Ill. is a dealer and offer the best deals on Boats and surfacedrive motors in a hundred mile radious of our area. IMO

If your worried about coldstarting get the new dixie efi. They also have the new icebreaker prop, its great for louisiana snow storms


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My PD has had no problems with the cold here in central IL. EFI would be nice but my carbed motor does just fine. Like anything else in the cold just warm it up good and roll out.

I've run my GT up in Dallas City I'll. the Mississippi River started to freeze up last year and I didn't have to much of a problem. The hull would ride up on the ice and the prop would break it up. The ice was about 1/2-1" thick. The only problem I had was the throttle cable freezing up. It's a bad feeling when you let off the throttle and nothing changes. Pull the kill switch!! Once I got back to launch I pulled the throttle cable out and run antifreeze through the sleeve then put the cable back in I was good to go. It's was different for a Louisiana boy to run in that kind of ice. -7f


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Gentlemen I thank you for your advice and info and Denny I'll check out M&M Marine.

I use my go devil to blow ice out of the holes I hunt. Just nose it up against the bank and gun it. It will flat move some ice and water. The only issue I have had was my throttle cable freezing up as mentioned by another post.

My group all run phowler boats powered by pro drives. Phowler is located in Clinton IA. No problems running in the cold weather . I run an efi and the rest all run carbed motors . The efi is definitely better but the carbed motors do just fine.

I've run these lawnmower engines in Alaska since 1988 and in weather from the 80's to -20. The EFI is immune to carb icing since there is no venturi. For those of you that think carb icing has to do with water in the fuel, it doesn't. It is moisture in the air. I suggest you Google it. I have seen carb icing in temps as warm as +40 and the solution is to get warm air to the carb intake. On the horizontal 35 Briggs that can be as simple as turning the air box intake toward the muffler. On the smaller Briggs and Kohlers I normally use duct tape to assure warn air is directed toward the intake. Freezing throttle cables can happen at the most inopportune times. If it happens while you are on the water don't try and force it. There is a good chance of breaking the cable. Instead figure out how to get heat to the low point of the cable. I've started carrying a small torch with me when the weather is below freezing. Urinating on the cable works, but can be messy and the ladies on the forum may find it difficult. I try to preclude it from happening by blowing water out of the cable and forcing lube in. A simple tool to accomplish this is with a piece of hose that slips over the engine end of the cable that is taped and clamped securely to the cable sheath. With the entire cable above freezing, apply air pressure to the end of the hose and blow out any residual water. Pour a small amount of oil in the hose and apply air to force the oil the length of the cable. This has stopped any cable freezing problems. The last and most important advice is to wear your PFD and the kill switch. If you go in the water when it is cold you have only minutes to recover. Oh yeah... an 18 X 48 jon boat is really noisy when you use it as an icebreaker.