Boat Advice Needed

[Ted Calcaterra]

I am thinking about buying a 17ft alweld jon boat with a 40hp jet and need advice from the many fellow anglers on the board. I live in STL and would use it mainly on the Meramec since I live about 5 minutes away. However I would love to able to use it on the White River, North Fork of the White, or Norfork below the dam. While I know there is no one boat that is preferred in all waters, I was wondering if I would get funny looks or if it is Ok to use on these tailwaters or river such as the North Fork of the White?

[Kicknbass]

The Norfork of the white doesn't have the slick gravel bottom shoals as the Meramec river does. This river has large chunk rock that is hell on the bottom of an aluminum boat. When the corps shuts the water down. You can tear up a boat pretty fast on the Norfork.

I took mind down 2 years ago in January and they were dropping the water on the lake and never shut the water off for 4 days. It was great having the boat w/ the water flowing. However, this year I took the boat down on the same annual trip, and when the corps shut the water down, I didn't immediately start heading for the ramp by the dam and tore hit extremely hard on one shoal and tore several holes in the bottom of the boat. This was an expensive lesson learned. If your fishing up by the Norfork dam. My advice is rent a fiberglass jon from one of the resorts. There is a bad shoal about a mile below the dam that I would be afraid to cross unless the corps is running at least 2 generators.

Good luck.

[Gavin]

I'd take a look at a Blazer Sport or a Legend Craft X-terminator. I think Troutt & Son's down off 44 near St. James sells Blazer & Alweld, & Xpress and Ernies Sales down in Ellington carries Legend Craft & Blazer. I know a fellow from STL who runs a 1448 Blazer and 20hp jet on the NFOW, and he hasnt had any problems yet, even though its only got a .080 hull. Might go with thicker .100 hull if your going to be running a 60/40 because weight wont be as much of a concern as it would be with a 40/28 or something smaller. Cheers.

http://www.trouttandsons.com/index.html

http://www.jetdoctor.net/index.php

[Brian Sloss]

Check the horse power restrictions on the waters you plan to run. The Eleven Point has a 25 horse limit, so you may want to check with the NFOW. It would suck to spend the money and not be able to use it everywhere you want to go. For the record, a 25 horse runs real well up the Eleven Point (some say too well in fact).