Boat U.S. - January 2009 - (Page 59)

A Drift Boat Runs Through It “The drift boat had its origins on the whitewater rivers of Oregon,” Bernt explained. “Back in the ’50s a family of guides from the McKenzie River country came out here with the boats they’d perfected for fast-water fishing. Their basic design is still used today.” While you could certainly fish from one of the big “oar boats,” as they call the big Hypalon rubber rafts here, Bernt said that those aren’t nearly as easy to control in strong current, making fly-fishing difficult. In the rafts, passengers ride as a guide mans the two long oars amidships, not so much to row as to control the raft’s rapid descent through standing waves of whitewater, while dodging boulders, navigating rock gardens and, most of all, staying upright until the next stretch of calm water — by no means a dry experience. A McKenzie River-style drift boat looks much like a New England fishing dory, with a sharp entry at the bow, fairly wide flair to the sides, and a transom stern. But these boats carry extreme “rocker,” a curve to the flat bottom that puts both bow and stern out of the water, making the boat very responsive to the oars. The traditional building material for drift boats is wood, and some are fiberglass, but the more functional boats for this kind of fast water, like Bernt’s, are heavy-gauge aluminum. There’s not a great deal of difference between running a river like the Middle Fork in a drift boat and running it in one of the rafts. “But it has to be done right,” says Bernt as he lined up about 45 degrees to the current above the rock ledge and the abrupt dropoff he knows defines Jackass Rapid 50 yards ahead. Once positioned in the current, Bernt turned the boat dead downstream, working the oars to keep it in line. The boat gained speed and — whoosh, splash, bump, sploosh — we sluiced through my first Middle Fork rapid. BoatU.S. Magazine January 2009 PHOTO RYCK LYDECKER (BOTTOM LEFT), PHOTO GEORGE BROWN (TOP RIGHT), PHOTO TOM KELLY (MIDDLE RIGHT) later aboard an eight-person inflatable raft on which everyone paddles to the river guide’s commands. But Chuck and I were here to fish. Bill took the drift boat’s forward-facing oars and started looking for a promising deep pool or current line as the boat glided through the S-turns the river made as it headed for Jackass Rapid a few miles downstream.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Boat U.S. - January 2009

BoatU.S. - January 2009 Contents At The Helm Reader Forum BoatU.S. Reports Brokerage Boats Invasion Of The Access Snatchers Don’t Move A Mussel Tech Connection BoatsGearWheels A Defect And Its Aftermath Obama Onboard? Fast-Water Fly-Fishing How I Got That Shot A Loop Through The Heartland Why Boats Sink At The Dock Install Your Own Trim Tabs BoatU.S. Exchange At Your Service/Mbr. Benefits

Boat U.S. - January 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.