Surface drive motors

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to a surface drive motor? I fish in the river, no swamps or shallow water. Just curious what you guys and girls think.

Advantages: Surface drives can go through mud, snot grass, sand, weeds, gravel, and just about anything else you can throw at them. Since they are air-cooled, they don't have a water pump to get fouled like an outboard, and they're not sucking up water like a jet, so, they never run hot.

Disadvantages: They are slow, when compared to outboards or jets of the same HP rating, and EXTREMELY noisy. The only thing louder is an airboat.

Thanks for the info. I can't see any advantage to running one unless where you fish is all swamp. They do look pretty cool though.

Yeah, unless you're operating in areas where the weeds and snot grass are really bad, I don't see much advantage to these engines, either. A local guy around here has one of these noisy SOB's, you can hear it from one end of the marsh to the other. I saw him one day out there, he had a couple of people on board, trying to show off by running through shallow water. Well, it was no longer such an impressive boat, when I blasted around him with my jetboat, and ran through even shallower water than what he was running through, and passed him like he was sitting still. Then went 100 yards past, and did a Hamilton spin at 30 MPH, and blasted back past him. Everyone on board was rubber-necking at the jetboat. LOL

They will get hot if you get your boat stuck and use the motor to get it unstuck. They do not do well in gravel and rocks. If you're not talking swamp or marsh...you don't need or want one.

I chose a mud motor over a jet for a couple reason. I can putt through the sandy or rocky shallows and not have to worry about sucking up a bunch of sand. The biggest reason is fuel mileage though. They sip gas compared to two strokes. Here in Alaska fuel mileage is a big concern on boats, four wheelers and snow machines. I was put off by the loud exhaust I saw on some of them also but found that is an option. I have a stock muffler on mine and its no louder than an old two stroke.

Thanks for all the input.