Restraint

[Al Agnew]

I have a love/hate relationship to jetboats. I hate it when I'm in the canoe on a river where I'm hoping for peace and quiet, middle of the week, river fairly low; and then I hear one buzzing up the river toward me. I hate the fact that they make illegal gigging far easier. I hate that the advent of jetboats suspiciously coincided with a drastic decline in the fishing on the Meramec; I am still convinced that the wakes messed up spawning. I hate that the wakes have quite possibly caused a lot more bank erosion on the popular rivers. But most especially, I hate that they gave the motorheads a toy to use on the rivers, ripping up and down these streams incessantly for no other reason than to see how fast they can go, with no regard whatsoever for other river users.

But...I love mine for fishing in the winter, and for the convenience of not having to find a shuttle for a float trip. It is a great fishing craft as long as the river is big enough to run it.

If that seems hypocritical, so be it. I made a vow when I bought mine that I would ONLY use it during times of the year and times of the week when not many other people were on the river, that I would never run it up and down the river more than once a trip--run up as far as I wanted to fish, mostly drift back down, and that I would never try to push the envelope and take it on streams that I considered too small for it to be safe and somewhat benign to run. In my opinion, some streams should be off-limits to jetboats, and remain the province of those who want to get away from noise and commotion. The smallest streams I've ever run mine on have been the Meramec around Steelville, the Current below Round Spring, and Big River below Washington State Park. These streams have plenty of jetboat traffic a good part of the year.

This summer so far has been so wet that there are a lot of stream sections that have enough water to run, sections that wouldn't ordinarily see any jetboats. But I intend to stick with my vows. So when I decided on the spur of the moment to take the jetboat out fishing somewhere Monday, I rejected a couple of ideas and settled on putting in a Merrill Horse Access on Big River. I'd toyed with the idea of launching at the Washington State Park boat ramp at the Hwy. 21 bridge, but I consider that too far up the river. I really wish they hadn't constructed that nice, plush concrete ramp there, because it only encourages people to use jetboats on that section of the river.

The river was very murky yet, and still up a good foot or more from what it should normally be. Dropping river, very murky--I knew the fishing wouldn't be easy. I ran up the river, past Mammoth Access, and all the way up past the mouth of the Mineral Fork, nearly to the state park picnic ground, and began to drift back downstream. I was using crankbaits and spinnerbaits, and the first fish I hooked was a nice 16 inch smallmouth. But the fishing was pretty slow, and the few fish I was getting were mostly small.

By the time I'd fished back down to the mouth of the Mineral Fork and stopped for lunch, I knew that it wasn't going to be a great day for fish. I knew the chances of catching a big one or catching a decent number of nice fish were pretty slim.

The Mineral Fork was coming in a little murkier than normal for it, but much clearer than the river. I parked the boat at the mouth, grabbed my topwater rod, and waded upstream. And I started getting strikes on almost every cast. I caught a couple of 14 inchers. I didn't want to wade far, and in fact there was still so much water coming down the fork that I doubted that I could wade far very easily, so I reluctantly turned around to trudge back to the boat, wishing I'd somehow opted to float the Mineral Fork rather than fishing Big River. Heck, there was enough water coming down it that I knew that, barring a big log jam, I could run up it in the boat. I would have had to walk the boat around a log right at the start, but after that I was pretty sure it would be runnable for a good ways. It was tempting. But I remembered my vow. The Mineral Fork just shouldn't be jetboat water, period. I wasn't going to be that hypocritical.

So I went on down the river, fishing hard and mostly unsuccessfully, wondering how well I would have done on the Fork. Restraint isn't easy sometimes.

[Flysmallie]

But most especially, I hate that they gave the motorheads a toy to use on the rivers, ripping up and down these streams incessantly for no other reason than to see how fast they can go, with no regard whatsoever for other river users.

That's the only people that I have a problem with in jetboats.

[DownStream]

Well I for one appreciate your restraint. It would only take one local to see you on the MF in ajet and think holy crap i've got to try it. On a side note, how much damage/reformation do you think there has been on the MF this year? That's such a small stream, I would imagine all thus flooding has really done a number on it. On the other hand hopefully the flooding has kept the fishing pressure down.

[Greasy B]

I agree with you that some streams should never see the power boat traffic, and in large part it's recreational power boating that makes many of our streams inhospitable. Two of my favorite rivers for overnighters might be considered marginal jet water, they also don't have outfitters, I justify the river Jon by trying very hard to avoid others boaters. I can usually put in mid afternoon, float and fish 5 or 6 miles only using the big motor to navigate an occasional tight spot, set up camp and never see another boater. In the morning I can often fish till mid afternoon without risk of disturbing anyone. On the run back up to the ramp I will occasionally see another water craft, but it's not too difficult to just kill the motor, maybe take a swim until they pass. My primary goal on all trips is avoid people regardless of jet or canoe.

[joeD]

Mineral Fork looked great, up some at Hwy F. I think the water was rising as we were standing in it. It became murkier and more cluttered with debris. Fishing sucked.

[jdmidwest]

I too feel the same way about the jets too. Although, some of my best fishing has been from them. You can cover alot of water and catch more fish.

My buddy has one with a lowly little 25hp Merc on it. We run it on the 11 Pt and catch many trout with it. We also use it on the Buffalo river in Tenn. for smallmouth. That is something that most of the locals have never seen down there. The only other boat we have run across is a jon with a 9.9 short shaft prop.

We are mindful of others floating and do our best not to make much wake around canoes and kayaks. Probably our own use of canoes and kayaks all of our lives has let us remember how bad a jet boat can make a day of floating.

I don't really think you should show alot of restraint during the week if there are not other floaters around. I would use it more if it were mine. It comes in handy with the weather and river stages we have this year. Get in the boat and motor to some good fishing and get out if a storm blows up. You can still fish a stretch of water that would take you all day in a canoe or kayak and spend half the day getting rained on while paddling down to the takeout. You can also do it alone without arranging for a shuttle, saving time and money.

We decided to use it on the 11Pt a few weeks back instead of shuttling and floating. We did more fishing and had alot more time to relax after. We fished the stretch from Turner to Whitten the afternoon of the first day by running up from Whitten. We still had time to help another group we were with floating in kayaks set up camp. We were able to fill the jet boat up with wood from a nice drift on the river and shuttle it to them so they would have wood for the night. Next morning, we motored down almost to Hall's Bay and fished back up in front of the canoes that were coming down river and had fresh fishing instead of fishing behind someone. We absolutely caught more fish than the floating group by doing so. We were able to get off the river in time to be nice and dry when the storm hit. When it passed, hopped back in the boat and fish some more till dark down at Narrows for smallies and pickeral.

[jbooth24]

[jdmidwest]

One of the nicest things about a jet is you can troll those long dead holes and pick up fish that you would have never got paddling a boat thru.

Tie on a crank bait and set the motor to low idle. Toss the crank bait out 20 feet behind the boat and let the motor do the work. Works like a charm on bass and trout.

[Brian Jones]

But most especially, I hate that they gave the motorheads a toy to use on the rivers, ripping up and down these streams incessantly for no other reason than to see how fast they can go, with no regard whatsoever for other river users.

I really have no facts to back this up aside from my own observations but I believe that most of the motorheads came to the river 8 to 10 years ago when it got too expensive for them to hang with the big dogs at the Lake. They can come to the river and be big fish in a small pond so to speak. That's the good thing about drought years; the big boats are limited to where they can run and are generally restricted to the lowermost sections of the river. Though I currently run a 115 on our river boat, I wish there would have been some foresight and horsepower restrictions put in place as jet boats were coming on to the scene instead of letting the genie out of the bottle and not being able to rein it in.

[Hog Wally]

I'm just always thankful that 95% of those (motor heads) don't have a fishing pole in their boat. As frustrating as they are to me and mine I always think to myself, it's their river too I have really only had problems with foul mouthed intoxicated floaters. They were definitely non fisherman as well. One last point from me - faster you go the less wake u make. If I'm floating and fishing I wave boats by and give them the hammer down gesture. Just get the heck by and keep going. Please