Small River Boats

Does anyone fish small, shallow, rock-strewn rivers from a boat? I am interested in opinions on the best model for this purpose. Preferably, I would put a small outboard (~4 hp) on it, to avoid any upstream paddling…
Grumman sport boats seem solid, but are there other options?
Thanks for any input!

I dont know if this is what you’re looking for or not, but this is there bread and butter. I’ve seen them in use and they’re pretty cool. river pro

I would rather fish out of a mod v jon style boat on a small rivers than that grumman sport boat. Just a a little more freedom of movement in a jon. Less tippy also.

I spent a lot of time fishing small waters out of a 10 foot basstender rigged with a 6 horse merc and a TM up front. That little plastic boat was durable, super stable and pretty fast with that merc. it probably ran 20 MPH on plane. No way you could plane it out with 2 guys though. If you’re fishin alone on smaller water its perfect. Also doubled as a great duck boat.
bass tender

Used to have a Coleman Crawdad 12′ that I fished out of for years,both on the river and lakes.Had it all tricked out,bow mounted trolling motor,pedistall seat on the bow depth finder/locater,5hp outboard.Sure do miss it!Tested a 15hp out board out on it one day,WOW!!!That was wild ride!!!

I had a 12′ LOWE jon with oars and an anchor. It was rated for a 5hp, but I put on a 6hp in deeper water. 2 guys, 2 trucks,1 to put in the other to take out. No trailer. Worked great, caught a ton of fish. Wish I never sold it!

If you are going to trailer it, my old 14′ extra wide jon boat with a 15″ transom and a 20 horse planed out easily, planed out (eventually) with 3 guys with a 9.9, and moved pretty well with a little 4 horse too. There was no tippiness, plenty of room for 3 and safe to take the kids. Three guys could drop it off the bank (about 15 foot down) and lug it back out again. We dropped the boat/gear and a guy stayed and fished the first 1/2 mile while we took the trailer down river to the take-out point. Two guys could stand up while fishing/drifting without falling out. So why did I sell it????

We used a canoe to fish the really small streams. One guy would get out and fish the top half of a rock bank. The other guy would canoe halfway down, beach the canoe and fish the lower section. By leap-frogging that way we could efficiently fish several miles of quality water without getting in each others way.