Al Agnew Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Monday my dad, brother, and I took the jetboat on the lower Meramec. The riffle right below the access is a hairy one with lots of big rocks and not much of a well-defined channel, but I ran it easily going downstream as we started. We fished all morning down below, then motored back up, planning to fish a bit above the access before calling it quits. Coming back upstream, when we reached that riffle it looked different from running it downstream. The approach to the only possible channel, far to the right, had a gravel bar covering most of it that was at most barely deep enough to run, and for some reason while I'd gone over it with no problems going down, I just couldn't hit it at the same place coming back up. But I made it over the shoal with only a slight tick of the gravel, got into the channel, and was feeling pretty good about things... But for some reason, brain fade or whatever, when I reached the top of the riffle I cut toward the middle of the river a little bit too soon. There was this one big rock in the flat glide at the top of the riffle that I just didn't see. It couldn't have been more than an inch or two underwater, but a light wind was putting just enough chop on the water to obscure the evidence of it. I hit it going nearly full speed. The impact threw me out of the seat (kill switches are a good thing!), threw my dad from the seat next to me into a seat I had set up just in front of him atop the live well, and threw my brother from the edge of the front deck into the pedestal of the front butt seat. Dad was okay except for a bruise and scrape on his hand. Brother was okay but for a bruised jaw where it hit the pedestal. I ended up with a bruised hip and elbow from hitting the floor of the boat. Not only that, but the impact also threw one of my loose fitting sandals off, and as I stood up I stepped on a lure and stuck a hook in well past the barb in my big toe. I had to use the rope trick to get it out, using one of my brother's shoe laces. We started up the motor after collecting our wits and nerves, and run on upstream to continue fishing. Everything seemed alright with the boat and motor. When we finished and loaded the boat on the trailer, I checked out the motor...nothing. Then I looked underneath the boat... There was a huge dent, a good two feet across, damaged three of the strakes and indented them about one and a half inches, with the flat bottom of the boat between them indented over a half inch. One strake was pretty well crushed and the aluminum scraped severely. But no holes. The dent was underneath the rear seat, and the rib at the back of the rear seat apparently stopped the rock and made the boat hop on over it. I called the guys at Ernie's where I bought the boat. He said they could beat the dent out, but if it wasn't affecting the performance of the boat I could just let it go. He said they saw boats with worse dents all the time. The boat is a Blazer 1652. Motor is a 40/30 Evinrude. That might give you an idea of how fast I was going wide open. It might also give you a good indication of how tough Blazer boats are! Just a good reason to realize that running Ozark rivers in a jetboat is not the easiest nor the safest thing in the world to do! After owning the boat 2.5 years, this was my first real accident, and it could have been a lot worse.
Guest Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Glad everyone is ok, I guess if I ever buy a jet boat, it will be a Blazer!
Members Terrapin Station Posted October 16, 2008 Members Posted October 16, 2008 Wow Al. Glad everyone is alright. Which access was this?
ColdWaterFshr Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Just another reason that jetboats are the devil. Glad you are all okay. As you said, it could have been a lot worse. A friend of mine witnessed the aftermath of a jetboat accident on the Big R this past summer. As he was putting his canoe in at Hwy 21 near WSP, so was a guy in a jetboat who was headed upstream. Later in the day as he returned to the put-in, there was an air-evac helicopter in the parking lot. The same guy he had seen in the jetboat had run up on something, got thrown from the boat and shattered his leg.
oneshot Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Well this is making me rethink putting Jet on my Boat. oneshot
bclift65706 Posted October 17, 2008 Posted October 17, 2008 I hit a big rock my buddys Blazer threw me out in the floor and almost threw him out dident hardley dent the boat. Another time in a riffel I hit another rock in my boat and ripped a hole in the bottom. that just goes along with having a jet mine is a 50hp putting 35-37hp to the water with power trim and it will fly turn to fast or sharp and it will skip like a rock sideways across the water and end up on the bank (learnd this the hard way) but I love it.
Al Agnew Posted October 17, 2008 Author Posted October 17, 2008 Coldwaterfisher, I like that "new" access at hwy. 21, but they shouldn't have put a boat ramp in, because that stretch of river is simply too small for safe jetboat use, not to mention that it's too small to take a lot of jetboat wakes. I don't run marginal jetboat water, and at normal summer water levels that stretch isn't even marginal. My boat has a 40/30 hp motor, and I definitely wouldn't want much more power than that...I don't need to get anywhere that fast, and I wouldn't have wanted to be going any faster when I hit that rock.
Gavin Posted October 17, 2008 Posted October 17, 2008 Scary hit...glad everyone is OK to fish another day.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now