Jet boats seem to be the Rage....?

[PSG-1]

tigfisher » Yesterday, 22:24[/url]"]i think he was meaning running a chute..aka channel, ive been there done that with a prop...youll spin out few props and then your lowerend gumball gears goes out.
there must not be much jet boaters in your area...trust me ,if a prop goes thru a chute at 2 mph a jet will fly by at full speed.. like you said, jets have there places especially shallow rivers. thats why i got both prop and jet boats

There aren't many jet boaters in my area, and definitely no rocks in our local rivers, just logs, stumps and shoals. You have to drive about 2 hours inland to find rocks. I have no compunction about blasting around oyster beds at 40 MPH, but the thought of doing it around rocks scares the crap out of me. Oyster beds have some 'give' when you hit them, rocks don't.

 

[PSG-1]

thudpucker » 24 minutes ago[/url]"]I jumped logs in a Creek (Louisiana) with a 9.5 Johnson on a 12' Aluminum boat.
Logs are slick and kinda easy to rock the boat over center without destroying a prop.

Finding a Chute in Rocks is a very brave thing to be doing if your a long way from home.

Yeah, like I said, our local rivers don't have rocks, you have to go about 2 hours inland toward Columbia or Cheraw, to the fall line. And that is a long way from home to be taking chances of grounding the boat on a rock ledge, which is why I haven't done any jet boating in rocky rivers. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to do it, but lack the experience to feel comfortable trying it.

Here's a shot of the Great Pee Dee River, below Rockingham, NC.



I'm nervous enough going over this kind of stuff in a river raft, I can't even imagine trying it with an aluminum boat, especially one that weighs a lot more than I can drag off a rock ledge. My worst fear would be broaching, and capsizing.

 

[thudpucker]

Since we are discussing mileage.
We'd put the boat in the first River, about 60 miles from Anchorage.
Go down river a few miles, then catch a right turn, and go up river about 60 miles.
From up in that area you had several miles of two or three different rivers to go.
You had to take plenty of gas, Food, supplies, and the tools to get stuff outta that grill.
Sometimes we'd make two round trips to supply the camp and everybody'd go up Friday night or whenever.

If you were the guy left in camp, while the boat went back to the landing for more stuff and fuel, the sound of that boat disappearing down river, leaving you alone, is enough to make your Heart beat at a frantic pace.
We always had two guys in the boat,
I confess, I didn't sleep well at night by myself. I worried about Bears! :LOL2:

 

[New River Rat]

tigfisher » Yesterday, 22:24[/url]"]there must not be much jet boaters in your area...

I'm about the only dinosaur still running a prop. And the New has WAY too many jet jockeys on it. They tend to run the same areas, over and over and over.

I have decided to film myself this spring running a rock garden (which I think most here aren't familiar with the technicality of running) to let you guys see what I'm trying to say about taking my prop where jets won't go. I tend to run a chute, ferry sideways to line up the next chute, which may be 3 feet upstream and 10 feet to one side. Jets can't maneuver this quick, this close.

 

[PSG-1]

You're right about that. Jets are lousy performers in aerated water and swift current, they definitely lack the maneuverability and response of a prop drive.

 

[New River Rat]

PSG-1 » Today, 09:14[/url]"]You're right about that. Jets are lousy performers in aerated water and swift current, they definitely lack the maneuverability and response of a prop drive.

PSG1, thanks for wording it that way. I never said it quite that well.

 

[RivrLivn]

You're right about that. Jets are lousy performers in aerated water and swift current, they definitely lack the maneuverability and response of a prop drive.

PSG1, thanks for wording it that way. I never said it quite that well.

Well I can agree on some jet boats, but a well desinged inboard jet with the right pump can do amazing things. Just lookup videos on youtube of the boats that run Hells Canyon and those waters in the NW. You don't see prop boats running true white water.

 

[RiverBottomOutdoors]

The hull is what keeps people from running that. Jet with a plastic bottom wouldn't even have to check up on those rocks....would be a hell of a ride.

 

[juggernot]

If i had an extra 40K laying around I'd rock one of these!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpR926L_f3I

 

[New River Rat]

RiverBottomOutdoors » Today, 11:29[/url]"]The hull is what keeps people from running that. Jet with a plastic bottom wouldn't even have to check up on those rocks....would be a hell of a ride.

I give up. You win. You can captain my boat on my river anytime you like. I sure don't know what I'm talking about......eff me!

 

[PSG-1]

opcorn:

I still think....no, correction, KNOW, that I could build a jet john capable of running the areas in the 2 photos posted by new river rat and myself. As long as it had a 1/8" thick hull with UHMW and the jet unit had a ride plate large enough to protect the nozzle, it would be no problem to blast over some of those lateral steps in the river. In fact, I think my existing jetboat could do it, if it had the UHMW bottom. But installing this on my boat the way I'd like to do it, would involve halfway de-constructing the boat to remove the inner hull to be able to weld in the stand-offs.

As mentioned before, the jet is not going to do very well to hold position at low speed in a hard-running current, and definitely not in aerated water, the prop drive boat can do this much better. But when it comes to being able to slide over the rocks without getting hung up or shearing off a lower unit, I know which one can do that. Both have their merits, and their flaws.

 

[RiverBottomOutdoors]

New River Rat » Yesterday, 9:44 pm[/url]"]

RiverBottomOutdoors » Today, 11:29[/url]"]The hull is what keeps people from running that. Jet with a plastic bottom wouldn't even have to check up on those rocks....would be a hell of a ride.

I give up. You win. You can captain my boat on my river anytime you like. I sure don't know what I'm talking about......eff me!

Calm down.... Not sure why you're in a jerk over what I said. I didn't question what you or your boat is capable of doing. If you don't think a jet boat can handle that, you might want to check out YouTube sometime.

 

[Ranchero50]

Actually I 'could' run those waters if I didn't mind the risk of ruining my boat. I'm way under built to push rock gardens like that. I have stuck my nose up some chutes that were aerated and I knew I could push through them but it was going to be a bear coming back down. The reward was no where near the risk to me.

Maybe some day I'll build a .125 hull and 1/2" of UHMWPE it just to have a tank. In the meantime I'll run cautious until I know the water because as they say, 'With knowledge comes power'.

 

[PSG-1]

Yeah, from my little bit of time spent kayaking and rafting on rivers where there are rocks, I have learned one thing. It is far easier to spot the rocks and ledges approaching from downstream. Approaching from upstream, you don't see them until you're on top of them. So, going up a chute is one thing, but coming back down is another.

 

[BigTerp]

PSG-1 » Yesterday, 11:44 pm[/url]"]Yeah, from my little bit of time spent kayaking and rafting on rivers where there are rocks, I have learned one thing. It is far easier to spot the rocks and ledges approaching from downstream. Approaching from upstream, you don't see them until you're on top of them. So, going up a chute is one thing, but coming back down is another.

This!! I quickly learned the first few times I had my setup out that it's relatively easy to read the water going upriver, but much tougher going downriver. The two other things that really effect the ability to read the river, at least in my experience, is glare from the sun and chop on windy days. The chop makes it nearly impossible to figure out what is riffles from rocks/low water and what is just chop. I also now try to remember to bring a decent pair of sunglasses, even in the middle of winter, to help with glare on the way back to the boat ramp after hunting. At least I'll look cool when I smack that obvious rock that I should have missed 8)

 

[PSG-1]

Here's an example of where the jet drive out-performs a prop drive, especially at 3:30 in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0510oeVQoLM&feature=c4-overview&list=UUHYpuGo2zvfQcgL2J7VdAqA

As I said, I have no compunction about pushing the envelope around sandbars and oyster beds, but I'm not brave enough to try rocks without UHMW.

 

[fender66]

One day, hopefully soon, I'll have my jet motor rebuilt and back on the rivers. I'd NEVER try to run my glass boat on them and have been missing great opportunities to fish for 2 years now.

 

[New River Rat]

RiverBottomOutdoors » 02 Dec 2013, 09:46[/url]"]Calm down.... Not sure why you're in a jerk

Musta been the two steroid injections............