Finally Decided On A Boat!

[LittleRedFisherman]

After looking into it for awhile, and talking to people, as well as on this forum, I decided on a shallow water rig. I"ve went with a Supreme L48, red stripe, with a 25hp at the jet. Rob was great to help me with the options and such, seems like a great business he's running there. Can't wait to get it wet when it's done, which should be in less than 2 weeks. Planning on going after some trout on the Little Red and White rivers with my flyrod, and some trout magnets, as well as chase some smallmouth on the Eleven Point river. If you don't recognize me on this forum, I was going by troutman, but for some reason couldn't get it to work on here anymore.

Also, I've heard the pro's and con's of Jets, and are aware of alot them, but do some of you jet motor anglers have any advice on running one in these rivers. Thanks again!!

[junkman]

Thought I would at least congratulate you on your boat choice, and also say welcome to the forum. I don't know much about the boat you chose, but from reading this forum I think you will be pleased. You will have to keep us updated on any pro's or con's so we all can be better informed. Enjoy and again welcome.

[Ham]

Jets only have steering when you are under power. Ie you can't glide onto your trailer very easily. Point your trailer a little down stream. Run your boat upstream and turn onto the trailer at the last second by getting the nose just past the downstream bunk.

You'll need to back your trailer in fairly far to off load the boat. Jets don't have a lot of power in reverse. Ie not enough power to pull it off the trailer. Plenty for drift corrections and stuff like that.

You'll learn to hate leaves in the water.

Get used to being very loud while underway.

[LittleRedFisherman]

Jets only have steering when you are under power. Ie you can't glide onto your trailer very easily. Point your trailer a little down stream. Run your boat upstream and turn onto the trailer at the last second by getting the nose just past the downstream bunk.

Thanks junkman, ill let yall know how I like it once I get to use it. Ham, I'm aware of the leaves and the loudness envolved with a jet, price I will pay to get down some of the water I can't with my boat I have now. Thanks for the loading advice, those are good tips I ,2?23 (:+_/:( +6!

[gotmuddy]

to run the eleven point you need to be brave, a jet needs to be on plane going up shoals which means you have to be moving at least 10mph.

[LittleRedFisherman]

Gotmuddy, yeah the eleven point can be tricky for sure. Where have you fished it before? I have never fished it north of the AR border, put in near Dalton last time I fished it, had to get out and pull the boat through a shoal. I've thought about trying it closer to Pochahantas, i beleive it's a little easier to navigate there, but correct me if I'm wrong. That river is one of the least used treasures in Arkansas, IMHO, as far as smallmouth bass goes. I recent servey was done, and according to the AGFC, it has one of, if not the most dense population of bass in Arkansas. With all that being said, I hope I can get to some of them with my new boat...lol

[gotmuddy]

I have fished from riverton to myrtle, with most of the fishing around the narrows. I havent fished the lower reaches of the river. Let me know if you need someone to go with, I like that river in the winter.

[LittleRedFisherman]

Sounds like a plan, if you know that stretch of river I may holler at ya sometime. I haven't fished for smallmouth much in the winter, but I bet up there at Riverton, you can still catch trout that far up, not to mention smallies!!

[gotmuddy]

I like to launch at the narrows and go up to morgan spring float camp. good smallies and really good pickerel there.

[Al Agnew]

You'll need to be very cautious until you learn the characteristics of your boat. Your first trips should be on wider river sections with plenty of water. One thing I did was, on my first trip in my jet, I happened to come across a rather small, slick log that was just a few inches underwater. I ran the boat over it just to see if it would clear it, figuring if it didn't it wouldn't hurt anything. It did, which gave me a good idea of how shallow the boat would run and gave me confidence to run areas that were that shallow. I also made that first trip in a river section that was mostly gravel riffles. Your first few trips should NOT be on rivers where the riffles have a lot of bigger rocks. Logs you can bump over. Gravel you can slide over with nothing worse than the possibility of sucking gravel into your intake. Rocks will stop you dead and do serious damage to the boat and possibly to you...so USE THE KILL SWITCH!

Also, jets don't steer like prop boats when on plane. If you turn too sharp, the boat will slide sideways instead of turning, like a car on ice. When you must turn sharply, be ready for this slide and steer into it just as you would a car sliding on a slick road. The boat runs the shallowest when the throttle is wide open, but the sliding out is most likely then. You should probably practice on a lake, just to get the feel of steering it through sharp turns and learning the minimum throttle to give it to get it up on plane. Most of the time in shallow water I run mine at the minimum necessary to keep it on plane, only cranking it wide open to get over short runs where it's really shallow but I know I won't hit anything that might stop me suddenly.

Ham gave you great advice on launching and loading. I have about 30 feet of rope tied to the front of my boat that doubles as an anchor rope or assists in launching. I tie the free end of the rope to the winch tower of the trailer, have the bulk of the rope lying on the front deck, and I simply back the trailer down into the water, when the back end of the boat floats off the trailer I tap the brakes suddenly, momentum takes the boat off the trailer, I wait until it drifts clear of the trailer, then very slowly pull the trailer out of the water to where I can reach the end of the rope that's tied to the winch tower without getting my feet wet. Use the rope to pull the boat back to shore beside the trailer, untie the rope from the winch tower and tie it to something that will hold the boat, and go park the car.