When designing boats they're engineered such that the weight load carried by the boat remains in contact with the water. If you put weight up into the section that rises out of the water it puts a tremendous amount of torque on the transom. When on the plane figure out where your boat contacts the water and what parts are lifted out and above - don't place weight forward of this position.
If you're having planing issues you can always add a hydrofoil to your motor. I've got the StingRay Jr. https://www.basspro.com/StingRay-SpeedXP-Hydrofoil-Stabilizers-for-Boat-Motors/product/45204/ for my 20hp Mariner outboard and my 14' jon planes almost instantly and never has any bow rise. I never ran it prior to adding the hydro, so I'm not sure how much top end speed it is or isn't costing me, but with ~500lbs between the motors, battery, fuel, gear & me (on top of the 145 lbs of the boat itself) I can hit 30 mph as measured on the GPS - which is more than fast enough to make me nervous, and seems to be in line with speeds that others quote with similar setups... I keep all the weight at the back of the boat - battery and tackle bag are just forward of the rear bench seat just like it's laid out in my bass boat. The only weight in the front are the trolling motor and anchor (unavoidable as they're fixed mounted.)
Also - make sure your motor is installed correctly - too often people don't pay attention to the angle between the bottom of the boat and the cavitation plate or the fact that the two are on planes separated by 5 or 6 inches. You want the plate as close to the plane of the bottom of the boat as you can and maintain water below the plate at all times. The size of the motor/boat combination will dictate what this distance should be, typically its within an inch or so of being on the same plane. Based on anecdotal support I'd wager this is the cause of issues the vast majority of the time, but people don't recognize it and spend forever re-arranging their boats and doing more harm than good...