Hello, I am from CT and puchased an 18' Alumaweld intruder 175 inboard jet, I fish Lake Ontario Tribs. A lot of the runs we fish are shallow. Too shallow for the 9.9 outboard. How do you West Coast guys handle these situations? Am I crazy to think I can get a nice set of oars and have control. Should I stick to anchoring? I have also thought of a good electric, but I am leary of there operation in cold temps (below 32degress). Thanks for all feedback!!

Most of the rivers here that we use boats like yours in have enough depth for the kicker. They tend to be bigger.

You could get a kicker with a jet unit on it. Then you'd be fine as long as you had enough water for the main hull.

In about 9 inches of water I need to start tilting up my 9.9. Anything deeper I'm OK except for those surprise stumps and rocks that magically appear. We aslo use oars to control are downward drift, but only in the larger rivers. Have you thought of an electric trolling motor that has vertical adjustment. Many of sleds have a kicker and an electric mounted. You can set it just be low the surface and get some steering control. Lower it down when deeper water is available. Still need to be on your toes no mater what.

Good luck. If you get out this way, I'd be happy to take you steelheading or after a salmon or two. I'd like compare notes on fishing techniques.

s33,

In my opinion there are 2 things you could do.

Mount your kicker higher on the transom and get the prop cupped to help reduce cavitation.

Or buy A 8hp TX Yamaha with power trim and tilt.

Good luck!

Your kicker should have a "shallow water drive" position on it somewhere. It will hold the motor at about 1/3 tilted positon so it isn't so deep. When I do that on my sled the bottom of the kicker is above the bottom of my hull. doesn't have as good of control as when it is all the way down but better than if the prop was ground down to nuthin'.