Restraint

[Mitch f]

I never made a vow ?, so I don't feel bad about buzzing up a flooded river. Ask Greasy B

[workingdude]

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.

we went last weekend to 11 point and it was the first encounter with jet boats. the folks were nice enough and saw them helped swamped people. but the wake and tearing around back and forth multiple times are what get me. i had a jet too on the black river. never seen the need to tear back and forth. don't see how the wake is less at full plane. maybe slow down to a crawl. none of my buddies who canoe 11 point, upper current, white river, norfork can stand jetboats. it might enable folks to catch more fish, but could you have done it without a jetboat? i would like to see them off the smaller streams.

[Hog Wally]

I've never really seen them on any streams mostly rivers. That would be precarious on a stream

[Al Agnew]

There were two main reasons I bought one in the first place. The first and foremost at the time was that I wanted to keep fishing with my dad, and he was in too poor health to ride in a canoe all day. The second was that the canoe liveries on the rivers I like to fish in the winter close down by mid-autumn, and it's impossible to obtain a shuttle for a canoe float. I got in several years of fishing with Dad before he died, so it was well worth it for that reason alone. But I also found it to be far, far better for winter fishing (and fortunately, winter fishing is better on the larger streams that are easily runnable with a jetboat).

I have seen jetboats on several streams that I just don't think are big enough for them, even if they are runnable. One nimrod tried to run Big River above St. Francois Park during lower summer water levels...can't imagine he didn't replace impellors regularly. And in this summer's high water levels, there were a couple of people running them above the Bone Hole Access on Big River near Desloge. Some doofus was trying to run one on the Mineral Fork above the KIngston Access.

[Mark]

Agree with all that has been said, but appreciate Al's point about elderly people still being able to fish. I see lots of elderly locals on the 11 pt., wife and hubby, and I think how nice for them to be able to enjoy the river at their age. No way they could get in and out of a canoe all day. Of course, they also happen to be very respectful of others on the river and slow down when they pass someone.