Running the Meramec with an outboard?

[moguy1973]

4 hours ago, MOFishwater said:

While I was on my afternoon run I saw a nice herd of deer walking across the river just below the old bridge by 44 last time the river was low in that spot. def gets shallow!

Yeah, definitely can't go downstream from the Rt66 ramp in a boat. Would be tough for a jet could make it through there even.  Really shallow and rocky through there.

[Mitch f]

This ankle deep or knee deep thing is too difficult to manage. If you go to a river like the Salt or Big, or another murky stream, and there is negligible current, you could have no idea how deep it is or grossly underestimate how deep it is and break your prop easily. It's different if  you're in a super clear creek like the Huzzah or Courtois the time. 

[fishinwrench]

29 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

This ankle deep or knee deep thing is too difficult to manage. If you go to a river like the Salt or Big, or another murky stream, and there is negligible current, you could have no idea how deep it is or grossly underestimate how deep it is and break your prop easily. It's different if  you're in a super clear creek like the Huzzah or Courtois the time. 

Have I ever mentioned that I was born/raised on the Salt and its tribs ?   Been on every inch of those rivers.  Prop outboard.   Swear to dog.  ?

You read navigable depth by the composition of the banks.   Or by dipping a paddle over the side as you ease along. This was before flashers even.  You'll only bust a prop or lower unit if you drive like a crazy man and don't pay attention.  We never went through very many props.  Always carried a spare however.

[Al Agnew]

Yep, the old timers always carried an extra prop and a supply of shear pins.

You can run a trolling motor in water over 8 inches deep, as long as you can lift it up to where only the prop is in the water.  I can "run" most riffles on the middle Meramec going downstream with the trolling motor even in low water.  Can't run them going upstream, though, and some, those with downed trees in them, can be dangerous to try to go down using the trolling motor.

[1099gl]

On 9/16/2016 at 0:18 PM, Brian Jones said:

Forgive me for not asking sooner and I hope that this doesn't come off as snide or sarcastic,  but.........how much river experience do you currently have?  I mean have you been on a river in a boat before either motorized or paddle craft?  Do you have an understanding of current and how it affects boat handling?  Do you know how to read a riffle, etc.??  

I would personally feel pretty crappy giving advice to a person who has zero river experience and that person having an accident as a result of the advice that was given.

 

I

[1099gl]

I decided to scratch the whole idea. I am taking a float trip on upper Meramec this weekend. Might try to fish closer to STL in a kayak if I get a chance.

 

[Blazerman]

I have said this before on here. When I grew up we had a rental place at Twin Springs on the Meramec which was at the Stanton exit off 44 downstream from the caverns.

Back then, this was late 60s and early 70s, there were no jets and everyone had a johnboat with a prop and everyone ran all over the river. Spring summer and fall. We had a 14 foot john with a 7.5 and ran around like everyone else. My cousin would sit up front because he was bigger than me and I would drive and every time we came to low water riffle he would jump out and hold the boat while I shut down and tilted the motor forward. And then we would both pull the boat until it was deep enough for me to get in and fire up the motor while he held it in place and then he would jump in and off we would go. We did always carry plenty of shear pins and we did go through plenty of them. Never replaced the prop though. And we usually went upstream unless it was up. And having two people was definitely better.  

Most of our neighbors had bigger boats and bigger motors and most of them had a setup for running shallow. It consisted of a bar they would push down that would tilt the motor forward as they came to shallow spots and I swear these guys could run through 12” of water all the time. and they stood up the whole time as they drove. 

But I also think they river was deeper than with less long shallow riffles like you see today and there were more fish back then- especially walleye. And we actually never really went all that far. I remember a few trips where we made it to the caverns which was 5 miles upstream. 

Now days with my Blazer I will run from my place by the k bridge up to the cave which was right below my old cabin and think nothing of it. And that is 13.5 miles. I do love my Blazer.

[Al Agnew]

Yes, the Meramec and other streams had far more narrow, deep riffles before the advent of jetboats.  I believe that jetboat wakes have changed the character of the more gravelly riffles on these rivers, widening them and making them have less well-defined channels.  I knew guys who ran 10 hp outboards on the middle Meramec and Current back in the 1970s and could run most riffles even in fairly low water.  No way you can run the majority of the riffles on the middle Meramec with a regular outboard now, no matter how it is set up.  A lot of riffles have no channel more than six or eight inches deep.

[fishinwrench]

I usually want to fish the riffle areas anyway, so having to stop at each one is just fine.

[Seth]

Did the rivers flood as often back then? It seems we get a major flood every other year these days. Every time that happens, the riffles seem to change a lot on the Gasconade. They just seem to fill in more and more each time we get high water instead of getting cleaned out. There are several points that the floods have taken out for me too that I miss. They used to hold a lot of fish.