Any advice running it downriver from the bridge? I'm pretty good at reading water and my jon boat runs real shallow with the tunnel and floatation pods. Thinking about using it this year to look for caribou with my boy. He drew his first permit and thought it would be fun way to get him onto an animal. Probably be a chitt show with everybody else doing it but it is what it is with the DC485 tag,

My buddy ran his jet ranger down it with no issues. Also there was a fella that ran his jet ski down the river shot a caribou as well. He said he just had to watch out for rocks.

Have only hunted the upper portion non motorized. Sounds fun. Hope your boy gets 1. Lookin forward to the report

Figure it can't be much different from every other rocky, sandy, silty, glacial river I've run around on. The mailman just dropped off a set of those UHMW intake fins that srwshooter makes. I'm going to stick them on and see if they change the performance at all.

Did this last year for the first time. Floated down and airboat pickup be allen at maclaren lodge. Floating down was easy but a pain as i would bottom out my kayak in shallow water often and have to get out and drag. I went down 10 miles and harvested my bou and was picked up by maclaren lodge who ran full speed up the channels by memory. If you dont know the channels it will be trial and error finding your way up and down very deceptive. Either i would follow allen the first time or try going up the big su aways. He charges by the boat so very reasonable....

I have no clue if we'll ever take our airboat to AK, but I bet it might open up some areas to less people at times...

Airboats float over bars that stop most anything. They have impressed me many, many times.

Unless the bar is sticky... LOL.. or covered in green sappy grass... sometimes all the displacement in the world gets you only stuck worse than you've ever been. Of course the times I've been stuck, I've never stepped out of teh boat into water... cept that one time in sand....

I bet if you did bring it to Delta you'd be pretty popular. 😉

Well I'm going to give it a go anyways. I don't have airboat capabilities but I only need a few inches of water to skim over. Should be fun if nothing else!

You have a P-tex bottom on it, Jeff?

Ptarmigan, I hope you have a wonderful time and get a monster 'bou! I am envious, for sure!

Ed

Thanks Ed! I'm leaving it up to the boy with what he wants to shoot and how soon he wants to shoot one (given we get a choice). I'm getting the feeling he isn't going to be real picky! He's dialed in with the 6.5x55 and ready to go.

P-tarm

Go git him one!
Post pics.

UHMV I think is the term. All 7 foot wide and 16 feet long have 5/16 on it, to be 3/8 if I get my way while rebuilding it all.

It still can get sticky when it warms up... and green grass with sap and sticky mud, and sand of damn near any flavor can be dangerous.
Let the grass die or freeze... even with the old motor I could drive around the pasture .....

Yeah, dont' ya know they'd just love the loud SOB... LOL.

Not to be a nit picker, but the term is Ultra High Molecular Weight (UHMW)

P-tex is a trade name for a polyethelene based UHMW, most commonly known to skiers and snowboarders as the base material of skis and boards.

Kinda sorta same same.

UHMW fins courtesy of srwshooter from the forums and James river jets. Installed the fins today and I'm looking forward to seeing how they work. I'm hoping they help reduce the slide and bumpy water cavitation a little bit. I've never whacked any big rocks but can see how these could help if I did. Easy install anyways.

Yup, I'm just hung up on the old slang for UHMW.

All I know is how slick it is, even over dry asphalt pavement. I was riding with a Trooper up in Fairbanks while there on TDY when we see this airboat come plowing out of a bar, onto Airport Road and take off. The bartender had taken away his truck keys 'cause he was too drunk to drive. The enterprising airboat owner just drove the airboat off of the trailer and took off for home. He couldn't believe he could be arrested for DUI in his airboat!

BTW the UHMW was much worse for the wear!

Ed

LOL!!
I remember that. On a bet to go from Pikes Landing to the Lonely Lady giddy bar.

As I heard it anyway. Also that the bozo made it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpYHj7bHZwo

Someone hot link it if they can or whatever its called.... I know Stan and his son that build American airboats..... its worth a watch for sure, and only due to the ending blocked with trees and no brakes on an airboat... did Stan loose...

What year Ed? I'd only heard of one guy to do that, Airboat Frank Stagnowski, and I didn't think he had UMHW on his boat back then as it was a long time ago. Frank passed last year, he was a neighbor of mine. Still liked his drink. He was a helluva snowmachine mechanic at Persingers in the day.

That would have been the summer of '89. I was up there TDY for the trial for the guy that did the execution style murder of the produce manager of Carr's on Muldoon.

It wasn't the only time it's been done up there. The one Mike mentioned was a bet that the original story wasn't a fluke. The guy who did that one actually got a visit from a knucklehead rookie Trooper who was going to give him a ticket for operating an unlicensed vehicle on a roadway, but since it was after-the-fact, he couldn't find a witness.

That Trooper, BTW, had just been cut loose from FTO and was still on Probation. 1st Sgt Waggoner had a word of prayer with him but it didn't seem to have much effect. The knucklehead got himself fired a couple months later for excessive use of force.

IIRC, Stagnowski did his in the late 70's - early 80's, when that area was still outside of Fairbanks city limits. I met him once at the Sportsman's show in Anchorage in the mid-80's ('84-'85?) when the show was still on Fireweed Lane at the corner of Fireweed and "C" Street. He was talking with a friend of mine, a retired Trooper, who worked Fairbanks during Pipeline construction days, about "the good old days".

Ed

Makes sense when frank did the orig no umhw on his boat. Sparks flying everywhere! Lol

Was 1st sgt waggoner fpd or ast? Knew a fpd Waggoner through his mom Terry Wiese?

And the murder trial? Was that victor stern's trial? I recall he offed some poor store manager that was begging for his life around that time

Alaska big place with few people = small world