Using Jet Boats

[The Reverend Floater]

A friend of mine and I were talking about using jet boats (not the big Rogue ones, but outboard Jons) on rivers. I own a 16' jet for duck hunting and it is tempting to run it on rivers like the South Fork of the Snake where it's both legal and you can access cool shit. That said, I know it sucks when you're fishing and some necker goes kicking ass up the river in his jet, so I'm not totally sold on doing it. What says the collective?

[2FUNKY]

I have zero issue with it and have never noticed it to effect my fishing. If fish are eating on the surface, they will resume just a few minutes after one goes by. Of course there are a few dicks that abuse them and run to close to you, but they are the exception. I've ran similar set up to yours on the Mo, Snake , CW, Salmon as well as others with great success. Plus running a jet on moving water is fun as shit.

[Chugachjed]

Get something like a sportjon with the sportjet. Running something like that is almost more fun than fishing sometimes.

[neckdeep]

No shortage of power boats on the SF; one more won't really be noticed. The problem with the SF isn't power boat traffic, it's finding an unoccupied riffle among the crowds during the prime summer hatches. In fact, do us a favor and buzz all the drift boats with WY registration.

[lifelinksplit]

I don't have much experience with them but agree with what's been said. They look fun as shit. Ran into a couple of 2 person mini-sleds(have no idea what they actually are?) Center console setups on the yellowstone this past october that looked cool as shit. It was just above big timber and haven't really seen them that high but they gave plenty of room as they passed and on a five hour float if get upset about noise/wake for half a minute then I'm not doing it right.

[snapt]

In fact, do us a favor and buzz all the drift boats with UT registration.

Fixed it for you!

Jets are great to get to spots to walk and wade, they row like shit so if you envision jetting up and rowing down to fish banks you'll be disappointed. We used to use G3's with 90/65's to Striper fish the rivers on the West Coast when I lived out there, rather than rowing we used Minn Kota Autopilots to keep us drifting straight along a bank.

Great for going run to run steelhead fishing on certain river. Would be a good duck boat in places too.

[2FUNKY]

Yup, bow mount troller is the shit!

[snapt]

Yup, bow mount troller is the shit!

Once you get the hang of the GPS on the autopilot its amazing.

[2FUNKY]

Once you get the hang of the GPS on the autopilot its amazing.

Word, allows everyone a piece of the action!

[The Reverend Floater]

Fixed it for you!

Jets are great to get to spots to walk and wade, they row like shit so if you envision jetting up and rowing down to fish banks you'll be disappointed. We used to use G3's with 90/65's to Striper fish the rivers on the West Coast when I lived out there, rather than rowing we used Minn Kota Autopilots to keep us drifting straight along a bank.

Great for going run to run steelhead fishing on certain river. Would be a good duck boat in places too.

This is good to know. Mine happens to have a deck on it (wiring tells me it was a bass boat in a prior life).

Thanks for all the input. Looking forward to exploring some stuff this summer.