Originally Posted By: mitch184
I'm going to take an unpopular stance, owning both a sled and drift boat and having been [Bleeeeep!] over by both enough times to justify wearing Depends now.

Whether or not sleds should be on the river doesn't matter, because they're allowed. With that out of the way, do you want a boat to barely pass you throwing out a 3' wake, scouring the gravel more and just generally being 'in your world' for longer

OR

IF SAFE TO DO SO pass you at a much faster clip making a smaller wake, jet aimed away from the gravel more but maybe slightly louder?

On another note, do you want a sled to..

A) Run directly over the run/hole but farther away from your boat
B) Run closer to your boat to stay away from the fish
C) Come off plane and idle through taking 5 minutes to move past if the waters moving at a good pace.

Now once everyone agrees on these, we'll make it a standard code.
Sound good?

As far as jets on thre upper Satsop,just because you are allowed to do something is not really a good reason for doing it. I don't know how many times I've heard guys on this site rag on people for keeping wild fish on rivers where you are allowed one wild fish. I agree with them, just because the state says you can do something does't mean it;s right. After all, the state is the reason our rivers are in such terrible condition for steelhead. I would rather you slow to a crawl, that is the polite and reasonable thing to do. As far as "come off plane and idle through", taking 5 minutes is a HELL of an exageration,I know you are in a REAL hurry, why should being reasonable enter into the picture? I've heard that excuse from large boat owners, just go slow enough to NOT throw out a large wake. If getting "up on plane" is so important to your enjoyment of your day go out in the bay or the ocean to get your jollies. I've seen enough smirks and laughs when they look back to see if they actually swamped us to know that it is intentional. After all You've GOT TO get where you are going ahead of anyone else. We won't fish the Satsop because of safety issues (asshats running into us on The Chehalis is bad enough!) WE will be recording all such activities for the marine patrol of the sheriff's dept. they have indicated they would LOVE to speak to these "folks" themselves. Great ammo for the county commisioners for those who want to get these oversized, destructive boats out of the upper river. WE have had "people" in 18 to 22 ft. boats come at us at full throttle on the Chehalis passing within 10 yards of us nearly swamping us, and then complain after being yelled at and flipped off, "well you are in the channel". There is NO channel, he's in a jet, the river is really wide there (just upstream from Monty bridge, deep on both sides' and we are obviously trolling..Obviously just trying to ruin someone's day.Just one of countless rude incidents, it's really a shame when locals (Elma) that attend LOTS of meetings to improve fishing on the Chehalis are bullied by clowns with too much boat and testosterone to be allowed to drive. BIG rocks would help slow them down.It will take evidence of this activity on the Satsop to get any action out of the county comm., but it CAN be done. I don't expect these kinds of folks to aggree to anything that curtails their anti-social behavior.Bob R