Now that gas engines are banned on most smaller lakes, what are the chances of them being banned on rivers? THere is nothing more frusterating than having a sled run back and forth over and over agian fishing the same hole. Most of the time they give little consideration to anybody. In a river like the Sky or the Nooch' its got the scar the crap out of the fish to have a 16-21 foot boat screaming over them in only 5 feet of water. Seems to me like something has to be done about motorized boats on some of our local rivers. What do you guys think? I dont see any problems with drift boats because they pass quitely without leaving a 3 foot wake.

tight lines.....

I agree with you on that one bank walker. I think the sky is to small for motorized boats. From past experience with my Jet Ski I know that the thrust from the jet can rearrange the bottom of the river in up to 15 foot of water. I wander how much damage to fish there really doing???

Bank Walker, Well young fella you have a valid point and the fact that they might scare the fish could be valid. I tend to think that it might scare them with a motor a bit more than a drift boat but it is probably just a little. I know just about everyone fishes out of a boat now days and with all the no tresspassing signs there is no going back to everybody walking like in the so called good old days. I myself still walk 90% of the time and I also have a boat for just about every application that there is in fishing so I can't be classified as one of those whinners who just doesn't have one. So in agreeing with you that motorized boats scare fish I just have to take it to the next step and make the claim that all boats on our rivers scare fish and probably the worst is the back trollers one after the other pushing spawners right off the tailouts and into the increasingly scarce cover. This is actually becoming a fairly easy thing to document in that the only place you can find spawning redds is in areas adjacent to heavy cover. This is a very serious limiting factor to the fishes ability to spawn. I was around when there were no boats onthe rivers and trust me a lot more of the areas that are suitable for spawning were utilized before this run and hide thing started. Actually in B.C. and Alaska where I fish each year I also hang around in the spring and help with spawning counts the fish that are not bothered tend to spawn in a lot more open areas than you will find down here where boat traffic is constant and a bit heavy.