Airboats Make Too Much Noise!

I hear this one all the time.  It's always from people without an airboat.  Airboats are noisy.  I have mufflers on mine and it's still a loud machine. People always tell me, "You ruin the fishing because it's too loud".  Well, that's not true.  Look at the number of fish I catch from my airboat. If you look at the number of airboats fishing now it's doubled in numbers over the last 4 years.  When I first started using my airboat for catching redfish and drum, there were only 3 other guides fishing from airboats.  Now there's at least 10 guides and I don't know how many weekend warriors have one.  Sure seems like a lot. 

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  How can a boat that makes that much noise catch fish?  Simple, the fish don't know where the boat is.  That's it.  All the noise from an airboat is above the water. There's no prop in the water for the fish to home in on and get a direction.  I've run over thousands of redfish and watched them just sit still because they had no idea where to go, ( I don't run over them on purpose, I just get so close I don't see them soon enough). 


Think of it like this, if a jet is flying low to the ground over your head, he's gone past you before you hear the sound of him coming, right?  Same thing with an airboat.  They do scare the fish, but the fish don't know what to be scared of or where it is.  I can stop in the middle of fish and catch them all day, as long as we're quiet on the boat.  A prop, or trolling motor scares the fish much, much more than an airboat.

SO the next time you hear an airboat go by and you get all mad because he scared off your fish, don't waste your time.  There probably weren't  any fish there to begin with.  The airboaters (the good ones who know what they are doing) won't scare any fish.  In all fairness though, there's a lot of people out there with airboats these days who don't have a clue how to run one.  I think you should have to pass a safety test to run an airboat.  It'll never happen, but it's just a thought.

If you haven't fished off an airboat, you're really missing some fun fishing.  There's nothing like going back in lakes most people have never seen and finding big schools of redfish and drum.  It's a blast.  I'm not talking about Fence Lake where every kayaker in the world can get to, I'm talking about lakes that people without airboats don't even know exist.  It's  really cool.  We see coyotes, alligaters, deer, hogs, whooping cranes, and everything else under the sun, but no boats.  They're  really neat machines.  Make sure you get a GOOD guide with an airboat or you'll have a terrible trip.  Nothing worse than a guy who has a $70,000 airboat and no clue how to catch fish.  He'll  not only screw up your day, he'll also screw up everyone else around you.

Ok, now airboats are your friend, right?  Maybe not yet but the more you learn the more you won't hate airboats.  They are the most ecologically friendly boat on the water.  Give one a try and you won't regret it.   The picture above was from a day of airboating last week. Took a couple of hours to get our fish.