running a prop on the current

[rootwad_mccann]

9 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Barclay up to Bennett on the Niangua ... Prosperine up to Ho-Humm, and Leadmine up to Blue Spring is easily doable also. 

saving that for later, thanks fishinwrench! You certainly got the drift of my original post - looking to put the boat in on a friday after work, motor up stream to a quiet camping / swimming / fishing hole, and then float back out sunday afternoon.

[Terrierman]

A 16/48 flat bottom Jon with a 9.9 up to 20 is the 1/2 ton 4WD pickup of the river.

[fishinwrench]

59 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

A 16/48 flat bottom Jon with a 9.9 up to 20 is the 1/2 ton 4WD pickup of the river.

Pretty much 👍 

The biggest thing I dislike about jet outboards is that you need to be moving at a pretty good clip in order to have precise steering control.   

With a prop outboard you can ease right upstream, and point the nose of the boat exactly where you want......And as long as you're not haulinass the worst your likely to do is scuff up the prop a bit.     If it gets too shallow to motor through.....just hit the kill button & step right out..... it'll only be ankle deep.  🤷‍♂️

[Gavin]

You could run downriver almost anywhere, and maybe run back up a few slow holes. I dont think you would have enough speed to make much upstream progress on the Current. You may have enough water below Welch but I'd probably just run it down river. That is what I do with my 17' paddle jon and a trolling motor. 20 miles downriver is easy in a day, 3-5 miles up river is slow going. I could probably pole or paddle faster.

[jdmidwest]

5 hours ago, Gavin said:

You could run downriver almost anywhere, and maybe run back up a few slow holes. I dont think you would have enough speed to make much upstream progress on the Current. You may have enough water below Welch but I'd probably just run it down river. That is what I do with my 17' paddle jon and a trolling motor. 20 miles downriver is easy in a day, 3-5 miles up river is slow going. I could probably pole or paddle faster.

I am with you on that one.  The anemic 5hp 2 stroke we had in my 20's would not get me back up the runs on 11pt in the 17' square stern alumnacraft canoe.  I doubt if they do better now.

I struggled on the Gasconade with my Panfish and 25hp Merc on Sunday below the Jerome access at the run coming out of the hole.  We ran down and was doing about 16 mph, turned and run upstream and was going 12-13 mph.  Hit the current in the run and dropped down to 6 mph.

Jets are funny,  the shallower the water the better they run.  Normally if you hit a riffle coming out of a deep hole with my boat, you can actually feel the back lift up and run better thru it.  If the riffle is deep, the opposite seems to happen and it bogs down.  Sitting up front with that stick steer seems to give me that feeling.  Did not notice that with the tiller jet I had first.