Inflatable SUP – Bote Drift
- This topic has 16 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated Jul 8, 2016 at 8:47 am by
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I’m hoping someone can help me. My wife and I love to travel and fly fish. We are planning a trip to Bahamas this March and thinking of purchasing an inflatable SUP to take with us. I believe Zac did a podcast on Bote and I do like everything I could see about them online.
I was hoping someone on the forum has used one and would share the highlights and low lights. Outside of flat fishing, I was thinking we could us it on lakes or calm rivers while camping in the summer.
A few quick questions if you used one:
a. Can it handle 2 people just to take you from point A to B.
b. If you have it outrigged with cooler, can you stand on the cooler and cast a fly rod comfortably without loosing balance (I have fly fished standing in a canoe without issue…similar)?If you don’t recommend Bote, any inflatable fishing SUP I should consider?
Thanks everyone for any suggestions provided.
Wayne
Hey Wayne –
I haven’t done a podcast yet with Bote Board (by the way they pronounce their company “Boat Board” not “Bot-uh Board” like most people assume). However I am working on a piece which will run sometime next year in Fly Rod & Reel, and among other things we’re going to demo those inflatables and compare them in performance terms to hard plastic and fiberglass boards. No one has really done a comprehensive writeup on SUPs for a fly fishing audience yet, and we of course have special needs. It’s a big project and I need warmer weather to actually check out the boards.
Zach
Hi Wayne,
We have sold several in the shop for people to travel with. I will say, when fully pumped, it is hard as a rock, that being said, will it hold two people depends on the size of the two. Can you stand and cast, I would have to say yes. I have not done it but we have inflated them in the shop and there does not seem to be a reason why you can not. I believe there is a leaning post that goes on it also. I do have a good friend that has a SUP paddleboard business that would be more than happy to answer to any questions. Jonas Stephens. Hit him up on face book or let me know and I will get you his contact info.Hey Wayne,
No experience with the Drift, but I’ve got a few inflatable SUPs (including a Bote Breeze, a Badfish MCIT, and a NRS Mayra) that get used regularly for everything from trout to bonefish to muskies. There’s a couple previous posts on here regarding these if you poke around… All are easy to travel with, and make great flyfishing platforms. I wouldn’t want to paddle two people very far on any of them — but if you need to, you’ll make better time sitting down on the deck and using a kayak paddle. Standing on the deck and casting shouldn’t be a problem assuming you have a halfway-developed sense of balance. If it is flat calm you might be able to get away with standing on a cooler, but I wouldn’t say its something you’re likely to want to do a lot of, and I sure wouldn’t do it over hard or sharp structures. I’m not sure you really need to, either — these are quiet boats, with little or no hull slap, and you can get surprisingly close to fish on them.
I haven’t been terribly impressed with any of the pumps that I’ve tried, and one issue with all of these boards is they need to be inflated to high pressure (14-15 psi) to handle well. This takes a bit of effort. Some of the pumps that manufacturers provide are nearly worthless (I broke the Bote pump within 2 weeks).
The NRS board has actually been the biggest surprise. My wife bought it thinking it would be more agile and faster than the Bote (which it is), but I think it’s nearly as stable as well — and it’s lighter. Doesn’t handle whitewater like the Badfish, but doesn’t do bad.
One thing I’ve been thinking about for my next flats trip is rigging up a breakdown push pole, maybe 10′ or so, that would fit in the carry duffel with the board…
cheers,
DaveZach, he owns a rental company not a manufacturing company. It is SUP Adventures in Hilton Head. He sells boards also for Bote And Dragon Fly. We had Bote but they had some growing pains and now carry his dragon fly boards in our shop at Southern Drawl Outfitters.
If you get any inflatable, make sure and get a good guage. You will think you can not put one more inch of air in there and you are only half way there.
Chris.Love my Badfishers by Boardworks. They are nice and stable, can handle whitewater quite well, and allow me to strap down a good amount of gear:
This class II down from my house swamped the plastic board, but my buddy in the Badfisher surfed down it without a problem.
Can’t wait to get back after these guys.
I need to look into one of those Travis. My parking garage here at the new job doesn’t have the roof clearance for me to get my canoe in. I could also take that down to Mexico…
Zach
Wayne-
I purchased a hard SUP that I keep in San Diego and use in Mission Bay, San Diego Bay and La Jolla Cove. Mostly it is for exercise, watching dolphins, seals, exploring the La Jolla caves. SUP’s are a lot of fun, but I don’t think much of it as a two person transport. Perhaps to get across a channel or something like that. But a few things I have learned:
1. Wind is not your friend on a SUP. Offshore in San Diego the wind always blows us back towards shore. But I got stuck on the wrong side of Mission bay once, unable to make it back into about a 15t headwind. A kayak in similar situation is better due to less wind resistance, and ability to get blades in the water more evenly. On a SUP you are always going left or right, kind of like a canoe, but a little worse, and always crossing your paddle over the board. Going into the wind you can kneel and paddle or lay down and surfboard paddle with your arms. But keep wind in mind. A kayak has an advantage there.
2. You will get wet from time to time. More so on a SUP then a kayak. More in an ocean than a lake. But it will happen… Keep water temperature and hypothermia in mind. Not an issue for the Bahamas, but Kayak anglers wear all sorts of dry suits, wet suits, etc.
3. I have discussed Rod Hamilton’s book on Bonefishing in another post and suggest it. He uses Kayaks but is experimenting with SUP’s for the Bahamas. He considers bringing an inflatable a must have item and suggests always getting the best and being prepared for leaks, etc. Well worth the hassle of hauling, inflating, etc.
4. I saw a mother daughter on the Green River UT last year on inflatables. No Hard SUP’s allowed because of hitting rocks, etc. When I saw how much fun they were having I went into “have to own one” mode. The one’s listed above look awesome.
Let us know what you do and how it works.
George
Quick update:
We did purchase the Bote inflatable Drift. Inflated it and it sat for 4 days. Still rock hard.
Total weight including SUP, pump, paddle, bag, etc. 42 pounds.
This is great news as we are taking it to the Bahamas in March so I can fit another 8 pounds in it for the Airlines to deal with….
I’ll report back after our vacation how well it worked.
Thank you George for reminding me about wind challenges. I packed a long rip cord which will become a homemade anchor in Eleuthera…
Thanks to everyone else for the comments.
Wayne
I wanted to follow-up with everyone who responded. Love the Bote SUP but can’t endorse yet as a fishing vessel. We just returned home from Eleuthera in the Bahamas. No problems checking it in with the airline. I did put the entire backpack in a huge camo bag just to protect it and more importantly, add a few more items to hit my 50 lb limit. It takes about 4 minutes to unpack the SUP, blow it up and hit the water. I took 50 feet of rip cord and an old tube sock to make portable anchor.
My wife and I combined top out a 300lbs so we sat on the board and paddled long distances without any issue. Then dropped the anchor and snorkeled. It was amazingly fun and enjoyable to be able to toss this in the back of the rental vehicle and use it all over the island.
Reason I can’t endorse for fishing is I never really tried to stand on it and cast a fly rod (especially in 20mph winds). I did fish daily but it was all flat fishing or walking the beach surf fishing.
Unless it was really calm water, I don’t know if I have the balance to stand and cast unless they were short distances. I’m hoping once the weather breaks here in PA (snowed 5 inches yesterday), I can test it out on the pond. I do think sitting on a cooler (has rings for a yeti or similar type of cooler) and casting will be ticket. I am also going to check out the leaning post they make for it to see if that would add stability when casting. Either way, we are really happy with the purchase. Thanks to everyone who responded.
Wayne
Wayne that is a good looking boat. I am sure you could stand on it; it just takes practice. Remember to keep your knees bent at first until you get your sense of balance.
Zach
My wife and I spent Christmas there this year doing the same thing. The SUP mostly got used for accessing creeks where soft bottoms made it difficult to wade, or tooling out to the reef for a couple snapper/grouper for dinner. Bonefish in such areas haven’t been pounded like the easier to access flats, and tend to be much happier. A SUP also allows you to chase fish between the tides, rather than waiting for your particular flat to flood or the high to drop out of the mangroves…
Fighting wind on a SUP is hard work, and trips like this are supposed to be vacation — so don’t. Pick your battles. Sit and paddle kayak style, or find pockets out of the wind to stand and fish, or drive to the other side of the island to get into the lee.
Looking forward to the article. I was playing with the Hala Hoss BT yesterday, which is an all around board. I am trying to find one that will do too much – moderate whitewater on the weekends at USNWC with my kids and flats fishing at the coast.
I didn’t get a chance to demo the Badfisher, but it looks sweet for a fishing boat. Great guys with that company, too. Really enjoyed talking to them.
It seems that the feel between boards can be radically different so I would like to try a few more before I buy.
Hi guys.
I realize this thread is old but I stumbled upon it while looking for reviews on fishing ISups for my husband. I see the Badfish is a favorite but the price point is too high for me. Came across the Bote Breeze and Drift and I have to say it’s got my attention. Sounds like Wayne is optimistic about fishing while sitting on a cooler, even though at the time of his post he hadn’t tried it yet. Any update on its fishing capabilities? Also, I understand that this is a fly blog but my husband would be using a spinning reel. And it would be for light fishing, catching Mangrove Snapper in the Keys, etc. Just wanted to clarify.
I also saw that the iRocker had good reviews for being an ISup.
Any insight would be helpful. I’m basically looking for something that’s, #1 inflatable, #2 fishing-worthy, #3 under $1K.
Thanks!
Kelly I have seen an absolute ton of stand up boards being used in the last two or three years, and they pretty much all look to be stable enough for fishing. One thing I have seen a lot of people do is get a small size Yeti, like the 35, then equip it with Yeti’s rod holders (which also work okay for fly rods). I have a rod holder on one side of a Yeti and a cupholder on the other. Given that they actually float when sealed, they make for a nice little dry box and also something you can hop up on to get some elevation if you happen to find a sandbar to ‘stake out’ on.
Model-wise I can’t really help you other than to say that generally speaking longer and narrower will be faster.
Let us know what you find out! I keep waiting for paddleboard prices to plummet when the trend ends, but we’re not there yet.
Zach
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