Newby with some jet questions

[richard s]

Hello all, just found your site about a week ago and love it. I have a couple questions about jet drives which I have no experience in. I have my bass boat up for sale and plan on going back to an aluminum boat for fishing the small lakes and rivers around my house. I plan on fishing a couple of rivers which can be trecherous when the water's low with sandbars, logjams and rocks. I know guys make it with prop drives but there are plenty of lower units littering the bottom. My original plan was to go with a hydraulic jackplate for the shallow water, but after doing some research on jets I'm not sure if it might be better. My first question is, how do jets perform on regular lakes in terms of holeshot and performance. Second, assuming I spend 40% of my time on navigable rivers and lakes, would it even be worth getting a jet drive, or going with the prop/jackplate combo.

As for boats, I am looking for a 17-18' tiller, nothing fancy just something tough.

 

[bassboy1]

On the lakes, there are no advantages to a jet drive. They require more horsepower to do the same task, and have no acceleration advantages, they don't handle quite as well (like to slide a bit in the turns), etc, but for running a shallow rocky river, there is no way around it, hence why they are in widespread use.

 

[Ranchero50]

The absolute best part of a jet is you take it out during the week and you'll usually be the only guy on the water. Much better experience vs. jet skis and wake boats, much less the big motor small penis glass bass guys. They use more fuel, are louder and slow speed handling usually sucks (throttle is steering).

One thing, look to get a forward stick steer or console setup so you can ready the water. Tiller steer puts you so low you may not see the one that tags you...

Jamie

 

[reccrew]

Regarding performance on Lakes, when the wind comes up and water becomes choppy you're subject to having the motor cavitate and you'll lose thrust. Also, the jet extends just barely down into the water so you won't have the control with your trolling motor as if you had your outboard lower unit skeg submerged. That being said, I've run my jets on many lakes but, you'll notice a marked difference in performance as your going to be losing about 30% form your power head; hence a 40 jet is closer to 29 HP at the jet. Hole shot is not an issue if the boat is set up correctly, your goal with a jet is to always get up quickly on plane; but it takes practice. Lastly, you will have to run the jet harder so you'll use more fuel, can't get around that; they'll be operating at 3/4 to full throttle most of the time. I've owned several jets and liked them all but have accepted that they come with limitations and are not the magic carpets people believe them to be; sooner or later when you run one you'll take a pretty good hit for me it always seems like sooner?

 

[S&MFISH]

I've found with boating,to get one thing-you usually have to give up something. To get the advantages of a jet-you have to give up the advantages of a prop.No way to get around it.There is only one thing for sure-you can take a jet to any lake and operate it,but you can't take a prop to any river,there are some it is virtually impossible(or very hard).If I can launch my boat,I'm running that river or stream.