So I have a 12 year old son who just loves fishing and I use to live for it. Time to get back into it for him. We want to get a boat trailer combo. I have been doing a ton of reading and a ton of video watching. We camp on the Northfork of the river and I wanted to be able to fish there. Here is what I think I have figured out. Aluminum John boat with a Jet outboard on it or a sport jet inboard. These will both run in skinny water and roll over gavel to smaller rocks under the water. They will run on plane in as little as 3" of water.  I have 2 boats I am looking at 1 is a 18' Tracker with a SJ and the other is a 16' jon boat with a 48hp jet drive outboard and stick steer. As a disabled vet I prefer something that is easy and safe to run on the river. I will do very little to no lake running maybe some of the bigger areas down near the upper Potomac etc. If I do run on a lake it would be on Gaston when I go see my buddy who lives there. 

 

My questions are what style and configuration power boats are most folks using? 
What advantages and disadvantages do you think about each type?

Not looking for speed (50-60 mph) per say but what is the min power you think you need for each type to get on plane in a reasonable space with the average river condition? 

Fish ability of both types?

Ease of pulling off a bar if it gets stuck? 

 

Anything else I may be missing. 

 

Thank you for your time I do need a power boat as I have tried Kayaks and Canoes and with my medical issues just do not work for me. 

 

Wish I could help Ray but I’m not to familiar with aluminum boats. Thank you for your service

I use a 14 ft aluminum with a 25 jet drive.  The North and South Forks are pretty small rivers, but there is some decent current at times, but I've only kayaked around there before.  Mostly I spend time on the Potomac and Monocacy rivers with my jet boat.  

 

You're probably not gonna want to be on a plane in 3 inches of water on any river, unless you've got one of those 100k battle armor jet boats with the tunnel hulls.  You'll hit a rock for sure, and it will destroy your boat or worse.  The only time I'm running on a plane is when I know the water is deep and I've been there before.  If you hit a rock with a bass tracker in a river at planing speed, that thing is toast.  

 

So the boat with the 48hp jet drive sounds like your best bet for what you want to do, hands down.  You'll have more then enough power.  I had my 250 buddy on mine at Deep Creek Lake this fall and we had no trouble speeding around the lake at 25 or so mph on plane, in wind.  At 16 ft, that boat would be small and light enough to drag over gravel bars - and believe me you will need to on those rivers and most around the area, especially in the Summer months.  You'll also need to be prepared to be able to raise the drive from time to time to clear rocks and gravel from the drive intake grate.  A 48hp motor is pretty heavy.  My 25 is heavy, and I wound up with a sports hernia that I'm still slowly recovering from(hopefully avoiding surgery) when I had to pull that thing up from inside the boat.  I'm going to build a pulley system this year, you might consider the same.  Those jet drives usually get clogged at the absolute worst times, like when you're going up a shallow gravel bar with a ton of current, and start sucking up crap, then you have no power and you're drifting back down the river.  

 

 

It sounds like the river gets pretty shallow in places at times? I do almost all my fishing on a shallow river. I'm looking to get a boat a little larger and more comfortable but here's what I use now and why.

 

It's a 14 ft flat bottom. A little too small and the flat bottom stinks on a lake with any chop at all. The motor is a 9.9 hp with a rock hopper. According to the gps it does 18 1/2 mph now and a little over 20 without the rock hopper. The rock hopper is a gizmo that protects the prop, skag and anti-ventilation plate. I have a trolling motor but I keep oars on the boat when on the river. It gets too shallow in places to use any motor but I still need to control the boat. Some folks might prefer a push pole.

 

The trolling motor is on the transom. Much of the time I don't drop it all the way down. I keep it tipped up with the prop just barely in the water. It's not efficient but it  helps keep it out of the rocks. The trolling motor gets beat up the most. You'll be fishing along and all of a sudden it's stuck in the rocks like a talon and getting bent like a pretzel by the current.

 

Here's a big thing. When the water is low the ramps are to shallow to get the trailer very far in the water. The boat is fairly light and I put those plastic slides on the bunks so I can push the boat off and drop it in the water. The boat is light enough that I can lift the bow onto the back of the trailer and get the winch started.

 

Jets are nice but not on muddy weedy lakes and I do fish some of those. In the spring when the water is high there are a few jets (with no oars or push poles) out there showing off but when the water drops a bit it's my river. That's what I call it..."my river". LOL

 

A jet can certainly plane in far less water than I need but there are always rocks and planning is the least of my worries. During much of the year I make it a one way trip and don't even try to motor up river. I'll go up and down deeper areas that I'm fishing but I don't try to motor back to the ramp. We put in at one and take out at another down river.

 

Anyway that's my set-up on skinny water. Oh and sometimes I just take the canoe.