Hi. New guy to this forum. My question is this:

Do any other guys on this forum drive jets? If not, then why?

I have a Tracker PT185 Jet with a Mercury 175 hp inboard jet. I have fished plenty of flatwater, including Lake Erie with no problem. My only limitation to fishing a body of water is whether or not they have a place to launch or if there are hp restrictions, but I mainly fish rivers so that's why I got the jet in the first place.

As I said, I am new to this forum, so don't think that I am trying to be jerk or something with this next question. I'm just trying to get some opinions on your boats and how you use them.

Next question: I read on here how fast and manuverable some of the glass boats are but I feel my boat is pretty fast, at least for me, and I'm dodging house-sized boulders on the rivers all the time while up on plane and sometimes running in only inches of water. So why should I buy a Skeeter, Triton, Ranger, etc. for 30-40K when I could buy a Jetcraft, Northwest, Thunderjet, etc. for about the same price and be able to fish just about anywhere I want to and not be limited to just lakes or the deeper parts of rivers?

My last question is this: Now bear with me because I've never owned a glass boat. I've hit plenty of rocks in the rivers while drifting or trudging along not up on plane with my jet rig and have not damaged my boat in any way. What would happen if I hit a rock with a glass boat? Would it damage it, or can they take some moderate abuse?

Thank you for all your replies.

I have considered  one.  Hp was my bigest concern with a conversion. Unless I went  to a larger motor i wouldn't have any speed.  I like the idea.  How do they handle slop?

sounds like you have the perfect boatfor your aplication the rocks would really be hard on a fiberglass boat i think most peoples biggest concern is with speed how fast is your boat  and i would also wonder how they handled slop

If by slop you mean rough or choppy water, the boat does fine on Lake Erie or rough water on the rivers. I just buzz right through it. They say you have to watch going through areas with too much air in the water, but I've never had any problems. My rig does have a modified V in the front to help cut through waves and it is a bassboat with fishing decks and does not sit too high out of the water, so a jetboat maybe like the RiverPro Highboy would be a better type of boat for Erie than mine, but that has nothing to do with the jet drive.

As far as speed, I really don't know how fast mine will go. I've never ran it at full throttle for more than about 20-30 seconds. The boat just kept going faster and faster and faster. At 50mph on my speedometer(I don't have GPS) I couldn't see well enough even with decent glasses on to drive safely, so I guess I just don't have the stones to run it at max speed. It feels like the boat is just barely touching the water and ready to take off like a plane even at that speed.

As far as horsepower(Rated @ the impeller), mine is a 175hp Mercury Sportjet, but you can get the Mercury as high as 250hp in the Sportjet. They twin motors like that up for speedboat racing, so I guess the sky is the limit on speed if you want speed. Some of the bigger Thunderjets have twin Merc Sportjets in them too. That's some real power moving that heavy-duty alluminum hull around over a few inches of water.

I figure that I can keep up with most of the glass boats as far as speed goes(If I had the stones), I can fish the lakes they fish and then go all the way up the river that feeds the lake and fish that too.

So now back to one of my original questions: What advantage would I gain by buying a Ranger, Skeeter, Triton, etc. as opposed to buying a Riverpro, Willies, Thunderjet, Jetcraft, etc.? I never see the jetboats on the fishing shows. Is it because Ranger, Skeeter, Triton, etc. are the ones who underwrite those shows or are they better boats?

cant really answer your question never been in a jet boat would like to try one out  by slop we mean really thick matted weeds

Weeds........Oh you mean the Achilles Heel of the jet boats! Weeds are not a good thing. They can clog your water intake or partially clog it and make it a bit sluggish. Certain times of year here the weeds are floating all through the rivers. If it's real bad, I sometimes have to stop and clean the intake. They do make three types of intakes for jets: One for stone-type debris, weeds, and a general purpose type, which I have.

Presque-Isle Bay on Lake Erie has a lot of weeds in the shallower areas, but I didn't have any problems. I did clean out the intake after we trailered the boat. There were a few in there. If I saw an area where weeds covered the surface, I would probably fish through it with the trolling motor.

Weeds could be troublesome if they are very thick. I could see a prop boat being more practical in the real thick weeds. Do props run well in thick weedbeds?

I am not really qualified to answer your whole question, but I will make an attempt. I own an aluminum boat and I do not fish tournaments at least none that count. I am also in Texas where we really don't have many rivers, that can be navigated by much more than a flatbottom or a cannoe year round. There are may be spots, but access isn't usually very good on most. Some feed a lake then continue on to feed anouther one. Now we have lakes everywhere at least in my part. There are alot of boat manufactures down south. And a high percentile of the population here fish, ski and are involved in some type of water sports. There is a large lake boat buying public in this part of the country. So no dought that would influence sponsership. The Rangers out of (Arkansas) Skeeters in (Louisiana originaly started in East Texas) and so on, are perfectly suited for fishing in this area. They are fast 70+ on the larger ones, handle well, and have large stable platforms in mod. rough water. They sit low in the water, eze around in stumps and grass and travel in low water. Not like you are refering too, but low for a boat of there size. No one that I know would put their boat in a river like you are talking about.

There are alot of Trackers around here and they do their fair share of sponsership and advertising. I haven't seen any jets but there are probably some. And they are getting more popular all the time. Nitro is a popular bass boat and it fishes it's share of tournements I guess it is a division of the same corp. as Tracker. There are some boat manufactures around the tri- state area that are building jet boats for fishing and hunting aplications.

Down here most of the jet drive boats are pleasure craft that I see. I have only seen two outboard jets in the past year. But to be honest I would not have noticed those if they hadn't been out of the water. So I am sure there were some I haven't seen. I think both of them were were Mercury motors. I beleive they make both inboard and outboard jet motors. And I am sure some of the other companies do to.

What had inerested me in a outboard jet drive was the ability to go in shallow water and when I ask about slop I was refering to not just normal grasses, this stuff is closer to green ooze. Since it stays relatively warm down here we can get large amounts of vegetation in shallow areas in the summer months. And some lakes are worse than others. It can be a mixture of plants and algee. It resembles a canful of really slick tough slimey spinich. The prop drives pretty much handle it with no problem.

I am guessing that outboard jet drives and inboards for that matter are fairly new as a fishing motor and as their popularity increases you may see more. Let somebody win a few tounements with one and they will soar in popularity. A propeller is still might versitile. When it comes to boats one size doesn't always fit all and If it works don't fix it. That's the best I can do.

Your type of fishing does sound pretty exciting.

Sounds like prop boats would be the way to go down south, at least in your area, with mostly lakes and some with thick weeds. Our rivers up here are pretty wide, rocky, and fast moving. A lot of guys do fish the lakes we have(most of which are small), but most fish all the rivers around here because that's our biggest resource.

River fishing is fun, but it does get old. You are always dealing with current. Everyone that fishes the rivers has an anchor on their boat. If you find a good spot, you can either anchor, have someone drive and steady the boat in low throttle, or stay on station with your trolling motor. Most guys use trolling motors from 80# thrust on up, 80 being about the minimum that works well. Below 80, you need to anchor or use any number of homemade or store-bought drag anchors. A lot of people do drift fish too, but you can only fish a spot one cast per spot that way.

Lake fishing is relaxing to me, just touch up on the troller every now and then and spend most of your time fishing and using/watching the sonar for fish, instead of always looking out for shallow water or boulders. The sonar is pretty much useless on the shallow fast water until your are hovering over a hole. The fish in the rivers here are all about the current and reading that is more important than the sonar in most cases.

Either way, you guys are lucky to be able to fish year round. Up here, the only way you are gonna fish year round is if you are into ice fishing. That's a whole 'nother ball game.