Terry - was that your stage 3 in the video?

My take on longtails and surface drives is that a longtail will do better in small shallow areas with hard bottoms. That is all. If the surface drive can get in plane, then the it's going to go everywhere ad more that a longtail will because of momentum.

No that was a stage one !! It now has 1500 or so hrs on it!!

Damn, you were haulin ass!! I liked that video, I'm gonna have to put one together while I've got my fathers rig, I frkn love this thing!

Indawoods, I'm going to quote you when I present that second rig request to my wife! After today's hunt I first beheld a motley group of airboaters back at the ramp- noses in the air, mostly young'uns; the second wave, including me, were yeomanlike longtails, a definitely older crowd, more quiet and reserved. Funny how the vessel crafts the captain. Funny that I did not see any surface drives, there are usually several. The blowboats are prone to set out late and are the first to break out and make noise, not because that they have their ducks in hand, but because they are a nervous lot and shoo the ducks out of the marsh. The faster SD's tend to behave like those BMW's on the road. Half the fun is taking my time getting there and back. An airboater setup only a hundred yards away cutting us off from the birds, my light did not deter him. I keep thinking a megawatt sound system blaring really bad music might have.

......... DO WHAT!?!

Running a l didn't bother me one bit. Just too slow. I don't hunt much mud. Mainly shallow water and stumps.

I love my long tail and wouldn't trade it for a surface drive. Where I hunt I've ran right by guys who were out of the boat pushing their surface drive along. We have a lot of sand and hard bottom, so I like being able to reach that little pocket of soft mud to get going. I also like having the leverage to wiggle my way out of a bind. Around here (Tallahassee Florida), alot of us look at people with surface drive as people who don't know what they are doing and They bought the surface drive for 3 reasons, it's the cool thing to have, they can go fast, and they like the rooster tail. The surface drives are inferior to long tails around here. But there are still some situations a surface drive or a long tail can't make the cut

Quackhunter, conditions are similar down here at the southern end of the peninsula. I laughed when you described the SD's owners...the only thing that surpasses both are the airboats of course- I would not want one anyway, it's not just the cost up front and maintenance, the noise, the difficulty of hiding one, I don't particularly like hunting in waders, all this adds up. I find the airboaters in general, not all of course, as too quick to pick up, they arrive late, leave early, "rodeo" the ducks which is illegal, and with the noise move the ducks right out of the marsh. You are right about the shorties being trendy and they also like to scoot early and whine all morning. Since we've had low water conditions for a while, the longtail is a good fit. Yeah they give you a workout but they are reliable- my good friend's shorty has been a lot of grief and money, great when it's running right- we got real stuck in that one, the longtail would have come to a stop long before , and reverse and/or a winch would not have helped there we just had to painstakingly lug it off the sand bank to deeper water. It has been a banner year thus far, plenty of ducks, good hunting!

Quack, I'd buy a shorty tomorrow if I had to make a long run, traverse thick mud flats, or cross big water. 20 mph is plenty for me; either design you sure can't beat the gas mileage and the relatively inexpensive replacement parts for these glorified lawnmower motors.

Price, maintence, and where I hunt. Don't take long runs, gets me through anything I need it to, and used the money I saved ($1600) for other hunting stuff. If I won the lottery I would own both with two boats.

One thing I have never seen discussed if you take identical boats with a heavy load--one with a 35hp SD and the other a 35hp Lontail--the longtail is gonna walk off and leave the shallow drive. I know I've seen it. The SD won't tote a load like a Longtail.

I have a 16/48 SD Go-Devil boat with a 35hp LT. It will run 23.1 gps loaded with 2 men over 200lbs and decoys.

My 24lt went 23mph with two people and some gear.









Could only get 15 against the current though

I can only point to the fable of the tortoise and the hare. All the speed, noisy mufflers, racing mods,etc. isn't diddly doo compared to the basic essence of waterfowling. How fast do you really want to be going when you hit that submerged stump? I take my time going in and going back and you make enough noise the ducks will leave. I do reserve the right to a super loud sound system and play bad music if you setup too close. If you can't lighten up and laugh at any of this you are in deep doo doo.

I experienced the speed/momentum thing with my friend's SD (MB35) firsthand. We were in a hunting mode, the two of us, me 230#, he 260#, all the requisite gear and then some, and a big cooler packed with liquid refreshment and topped with ice, we call that our "forward ballast". We hit skim water and sand at top speed, my longtail would have halted right there, and got in about 300 yards and then bottomed out. It was heave ho for what seemed forever, reverse would have been useless, a winch a possible rescuer but not really- a wench would have been better . After we got our freedom from the sand bank we inspected the prop- he needed a new one, that sand/marl shaved it real small. We were fools but the ducks were just ahead and led us astray. I know he's eyeballing an airboat for his next major purchase. I will stay with the dinosaur.

Reasons I drive a LT?
1: I can skip all of the drama in the thread about trailering long distance .. just swing tail into boat, rest in cradle, tie down and go.

2: can brag about having a looooong shaft, that's really good for digging deep.

3: can be proud that shaft doesn't have a sharp bend in it.

4: with swing tongue and taking tiller handle off, will just fit in garage, SD doesn't offer that option. Damn HOA.

Wow I just bought a long tail and didnt know you LT guys could make up so much BS. There is nothing better about a long tail except price and I do like it in the timber more then my SD. Seems I can get the boat to turn harder etc. but as for out running a SD or running threw stuff they had to push. You have lost your mine. When I pulled up to the boat launch in a 2072 4 man gator hide with my 6000 and only saw long tails. I'd let them get at least a 15 min head start to make it some what fair. I ran low 30's with 2 guys. Ran mid 20's with 4 guys and dog. I also will say I run a lot of stump fields and nvr once has my surface drive had me hung up??
Now saying all that where my LT is better. (24 beavortail)
It runs my 1448 better then my 23 mini did
I use it in hard bottom flooded timber on my property so no reason for any type of speed
I think that's it

Fork a longtail!!!

I started this thread to find out if others are using an LT in the same way I am. Thank those of you who corroborated my assumptions, namely that in a skinny water/hard bottom are, the longtail was still viable; as well, in a cypress swamp situation. I did not want any ad hominem arguments or vitriol. My duck hunting mentor runs an SD on the big lake down here and it is great; the downsides are the several mechanical breakdowns he's had- a lot more cost and aggravation than my LT- and in the frequent real low water situations in the past few years his SD has not been an advantage. We don't have much mud and the bottom is sand/marl so the prop is quickly worn and useless. For the greater part of most marshes the SD is the king (I am leaving out airboats to simplify the argument), but that does not make their owners necessarily superior. Sorry, could not resist that ribbing. Whatever you drive, do it responsibly. Vroom, vroom.

^^^^^quit being a bitch about the whole thing please.

Dude you call a guy you duck hunt with a mentor!! How forking old are you!!

I am 57. On the day you die, before you expire, if someone corrects your spelling error or explains something you never understood, you are getting mentoring. I started late in waterfowling though I early on was very interested. Not a bad thing, I've met some who grew up with it and grew jaundiced and gave it up. I don't give a hoot about anybody's age, just don't let your heart grow old.

I have both surface drive and a longtail and both have a place in my Arkansas river bottom environment. What I have discovered is that the surface drive is great for long hauls in relatively shallow water with moderate obstacles like stumps and mild veg, while the longtail is much more useful for my duck hunting with its reach and torque I seem to be stuck less. The surface drive seems to be a happy medium between an outboard and a longtail which I dont need so the sd is leaving to be replaced with an e-tech or nissan for my open water saturdays with my kiddos. The longtail I have is shop built and all components are replaceable from my local auto parts store. Its perfect for what I do.

I usually drive no more than 5 miles one way in my LT; total run about 10 miles. I use about 2.1 gallons. How long is your long run in a SD? The only serious obstacles are floating mud rafts that are quite solid and will stop both SD's and LT's- the only thing going over them is an airboat. In the absence of any bottom mud here, it is either sand or coral rock, and since the SD requires a tad more water for its bigger prop/ lower drive, the LT is an obvious fit. There are plenty of SD's here so they do work fine when there is enough water. The cost of the SD makes them somewhat prohibitive to many. I would say overall the LT is a bit more reliable than the more complex SD. My friend in an LT broke down in the marsh a couple of days ago, I had to pull him back. It was a broken flywheel. The parts are relatively cheap and he's has this happen once before- the Kohler 25 is 15 years old and very reliable. There are far more numerous reports of mechanical problems among the SD's since they came out. The speed gain, better drivability, comes with a price.
I want to wish everybody, whatever you drive, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and good hunting!!

my trips range from 5 min one way to all day when I have time. my longtail honestly is easier to drive than the sd is because the prop is easier to pull out of the water and ease around stuff. My sd has no clutch so the big arse prop is turning all the time and giving me an idle speed of about 6 mph, too fast for comfort in all environments ive been in. The money for a sd with a clutch way exceeds my budget and if im gonna finance something Its gonna be an actual outboard for takin my kids to the big arkansas for some tubing action. I have a grand total of 200 dollars in my LT cause I already had a motor off an air compressor. So same here merry christmas to everyone.

I have been looking at purchasing either a SD or LT rig for the lake I live on, after reading this thread I have decided on a LT. The lake is relatively shallow and is fed by a hard bottomed river, limestone and sand. The lake itself was dammed in the 20s and is full of old stumps and literally thousands of cypress trees and in many places thick vegetation. I do not forsee running at high speed anywhere in this lake, and if I go up one of the creeks that feeds it, there is a no wake restriction. Ironically I had been leaning towards a SD and was willing to pay the extra money for all the bling, I want to thank all the people who listed the pros and the cons of a LT, it was the folks arguing for the SDs that actually convinced me to go LT, simply because what most of the arguments seemed to rely on are moot where I would be using the boat.

The rig will be used for duck hunting, fishing, frog gigging, running turtle traps and otter/beaver traps at times (and gator hunting whenever I get drawn). I realize a reverse might come in handy but I think the benefits of the LT outweigh the need for a reverse.