Rowed my first raft this weekend…

[Zach Matthews]

Hey guys –

James Buice was nice enough to give me a little stick time in his brand new 16′ Outcast raft (this thing is their Cadillac model and weighs a freaking ton.

[mark s]

Nice, let’s see some pics.

Here’s one of the members at the oars of a brand new ’07 Claka

[Neal Osborn]

Zach, how much did you charge James for a 1/2 day guided trip?

[Zach Matthews]

Neal –

I made him row his own butt back upriver to the takeout!

[Zach Matthews]

Mark –

I’ve seen that same look on Tim’s face when we decided to cut a new trail back to the road through one hell of a swamp.

Zach

[Tim Pommer]

Nice pic brosef.

[Tim Pommer]

And yes Zach, rowing is as sweet as fishing.

[anonymous]

Zach, welcome to the drift boat fraternity!

For those of you who own drift boats – do you get as big a kick out of navigating the boat as you do fishing yourself?

After a while “you become one with oars.”

[george_cox]

Zach:
Yes, welcome to the rafting side of drifting.

[Joel Thompson]

Hey guys –

James Buice was nice enough to give me a little stick time in his brand new 16′ Outcast raft (this thing is their Cadillac model and weighs a freaking ton.  We had to disassemble it to haul it out).  

A Cadillac model in a raft would be a light one in my opinion. 😉 Especially if you are having to tear it down and haul it out!
Really cool; the strokes aren’t much different than in my one-man pontoon, but everything required much more force.  The hardest thing I had to deal with was keeping the oars at their balance point in the oar-locks.  James is a few inches shorter than me, and he likes to keep his oars sort of balanced on the edge of the sleeve thing on them, rather than let them ride on the lock-stopping thing (don’t you love my sophisticated terminology?)

A good way for a beginner to start out is to put oar rights on the oars. This helps keep the oars in place for you and is a great way to start the whole memory thing. I did this for my wife and she is a pretty good oarsman now.
This really made me jones for some more rowing.  For those of you who own drift boats – do you get as big a kick out of navigating the boat as you do fishing yourself?  I’m happy to say James landed a rainbow on a dry while I was at the sticks.

Zach

I like being behind the sticks unless the wind is blowing. Around here it seems to ALWAYS be in your face and that can make for a really challenging day! Zach anytime you want to row a raft I have a really sweet Sotar that I would be happy to let you row! And I promise not to hook you if you are a good ducker! 🙂
Joel

[Zach Matthews]

Joel –

If I am ever in Montana I promise to take you up on that – I am decidedly mediocre at controlling a raft.

[Author]

Posts