Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

Gonna have to put some time on that water to figure out some patterns or something. I wasn’t even sure where to look for fish. There was practically no current, didn’t see a lot of fish on the sonar, not a lot of obvious structure… just not the kind of river water that I’ve grown accustomed to fishing. Im mostly a casting guy, maybe I need to start trolling this kind of water.

I’m really tempted to just put the boat in at Parker or Emlenton and hoping I don’t bust my prop. I could just cruise up as far as I can go before I bottom out then drift back down, or even just motor around as much as I can and wade.

I tried the Ned rigged ZMan again. Little smallmouth loved it. Got a few decent ones too, but seemed to be crack for the 10”ers. They snagged up much more than weedless tubes or senkos, but if fishing them mostly in wadable depths, unsnagging just like the others. Will definitely be in my rotation when the bigger baits aren’t getting hits.

Yup you will definitely get a lot of small bass on the TRDs. It’s a small bait. But you get big ones too. To me it seems like every fish that you put one in front of will hit it. Just so happens that there are more 10s in the river than 18s.

I’ve been using the ned rigged Zman fluke style baits a lot this year and I love them for the river. I think they filter out some of the smaller fish too because they have a bigger profile than the TRD. Jerk shad in gold rush.

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

Gonna have to put some time on that water to figure out some patterns or something. I wasn’t even sure where to look for fish. There was practically no current, didn’t see a lot of fish on the sonar, not a lot of obvious structure… just not the kind of river water that I’ve grown accustomed to fishing. Im mostly a casting guy, maybe I need to start trolling this kind of water.

I’m really tempted to just put the boat in at Parker or Emlenton and hoping I don’t bust my prop. I could just cruise up as far as I can go before I bottom out then drift back down, or even just motor around as much as I can and wade.

 
Just get a jet and be done with it....opens up a lot more river water for you, esp. the upper Allegheny where it is more fun!  

Can I just put a jet outboard on the boat I have now? It’s a 14’ v hull Grumman from the 80s. I feel like it’s not the ideal kind of boat for a jet.

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

 
Rosston is kind of a tough launch, and even tougher to get back on the trailer as it's pretty shallow there. You can motor quite a way up Crooked Creek, and there are walleyes, Muskie and a few Northerns in there, but I can't say about this time of the year. Down river between the island and railroad side usually gives up some fish, as does the downstream side of that island. If you're going up river, leaving the launch go straight across closest to the island 'til you reach the barge channel. It's very shallow on the marina side for the 1st third or half mile, then you're ok going up river. Trim your motor up to the last notch, enough to keep the water pump working, so that if you ground out, the skeg will take most of the abuse without prop damage. Word of caution. When you're stirring up all that muck and vegetation, the pump pushes it up and into the power head, and can plug up the telltale. 1st trip out in the spring, I fired up and had no pizzer. Ran a wire up in there, got muddy water at first, then the full stream. My motor does not have a thermostat, but the smaller 15 does, and the stat and the hose down to the pizzer was plugged on it with mud and the hulls of choke cherries. Not a good thing.

MyWar
Yup you will definitely get a lot of small bass on the TRDs. It’s a small bait. But you get big ones too. To me it seems like every fish that you put one in front of will hit it. Just so happens that there are more 10s in the river than 18s.

I’ve been using the ned rigged Zman fluke style baits a lot this year and I love them for the river. I think they filter out some of the smaller fish too because they have a bigger profile than the TRD. Jerk shad in gold rush.

I will give that a shot.  I don't have any Zman flukes, but do have some Zooms that seem to get hit at times using as jerkbaits.  I did get two okay fish, one probably 14"er and another a little smaller.  Also got a few small rock bass too...  When using senkos (dingers), I get some 10"ers, but most are 12"+.  But far less strikes.  So, I guess a give and take.  I was debating to ned rig a dinger.
 
Most of the jet boats that I have seen are flat bottom or those shallow V hulls.  I too have a Grumman, mine is the 5.0 Series (17') side console.  Mine sits way too deep to get through rapids, regardless of a jet drive or not.  Mine is also riveted yours may not be.  I imagine you would really want welded for the occasional scraping of rocks.
 
There are river rock guards for propeller boats.  I'd imagine they are much more designed for you to crawl through unsure of areas, than they are for you to cruise like you can with a jet prop.  It isn't going to do all that much to protect your skeg at higher impact.

Man all this talk of boat maintenance makes me wanna have a friend with a boat, not an actual boat!!

Mine is riveted too.

I don’t think I’d try anything that looks too shallow. I’d stick to crawling through some borderline areas rather than blasting through rapids like I could in a jet.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen pontoons on the river up by Foxburg. What’s the draft on a pontoon?

If I could access some short stretches, like say just a couple miles, I would be happy. It would be easier than paddling upstream in the kayak. For example if I could drop in at the Parker launch and get up to those islands and the mouth of the clarion, I could spend all day fishing that stretch. I know there’s a decent channel that goes at least a little bit up past the Parker bridge.

A prop guard might be a good idea if I’m gonna try this. Looks like they are inexpensive and I could install easily myself.

EMitch

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

 
Rosston is kind of a tough launch, and even tougher to get back on the trailer as it's pretty shallow there. You can motor quite a way up Crooked Creek, and there are walleyes, Muskie and a few Northerns in there, but I can't say about this time of the year. Down river between the island and railroad side usually gives up some fish, as does the downstream side of that island. If you're going up river, leaving the launch go straight across closest to the island 'til you reach the barge channel. It's very shallow on the marina side for the 1st third or half mile, then you're ok going up river. Trim your motor up to the last notch, enough to keep the water pump working, so that if you ground out, the skeg will take most of the abuse without prop damage. Word of caution. When you're stirring up all that muck and vegetation, the pump pushes it up and into the power head, and can plug up the telltale. 1st trip out in the spring, I fired up and had no pizzer. Ran a wire up in there, got muddy water at first, then the full stream. My motor does not have a thermostat, but the smaller 15 does, and the stat and the hose down to the pizzer was plugged on it with mud and the hulls of choke cherries. Not a good thing.

I went back to some of info you all had posted last year which helped a lot with the navigation. We didn’t motor upstream past the marina, we mostly drifted with the current and ran the electric down stream. We got down to about the end of that last island before lock 6 and then motored up. Didn’t get a chance to explore the creek too much, although that would have been fun.

It looks like the launch was renovated recently. I think they poured new concrete last fall. It was steep but other than that I didn’t have much trouble, although I did just wade in and guide the boat onto the trailer by hand. A bigger boat would be tricky.

What’s the plan of attack on this kind of water? Try to cover a lot of ground by drifting and/or trolling? Bounce baits off the bottom while moving?

I didn’t see a ton of fish on the depth finder, just a couple here and there. So I mostly ended up fishing soft plastics on the shoreline drop offs, which perhaps unsurprisingly, only got a few bass.

It looks like there are some big deep holes out in the main channel and the depth can change quite a bit. Should I be focusing on the deeper water?