Drift Boat Rowing 101

Everything you need to know to make a drift boat go

Despite the potential risk of insulting readers, I wanted to entitle this piece "An Idiot's Guide to Rowing Drift Boats" because I'm comfortable speaking from that perspective. But potentates in the plush FR&R editorial suites would have none of it. Though I've owned and rowed drift boats for over two decades, in no version of reality, however tortured, would I be considered an expert. What I am is still alive and raring to go again after many hundreds of trips without serious damage to boats, passengers, innocent bystanders or private property, and always with a deep appreciation for the unique virtues of the craft, both as a fishing platform and a mode of river transport.

Drift boats originated and evolved on Oregon's McKenzie and Rogue rivers, and their use spread rapidly throughout the Northwest, then east to the Rockies and beyond. Today, you can find them on trout rivers coast to coast, and it's not hard to see why. Drift boats are ideally suited to negotiating moving water. Because the boat bottom is flat from side to side, the hull pivots easily in the current and the oarsman doesn't fight the drag of a keel. Water slides beneath the hull with little resistance, and the boat glides across the surface.

From front to back, the bottom is curved, or "rockered," and the bow and stern rise slightly above the water. As a result, the footprint of the hull on the water is shorter than the boat itself; thus the boat can be rotated quickly and easily for maneuvering, as the oarsman is not levering the entire hull length against the water. The high, upswept bow breaks through rough water, rides up standing waves and deflects splash. The upswept stern keeps the transom out of the water; the current slips beneath the hull rather than piling up against the back of the boat and working against the oarsman's efforts. And the shallow draft is well matched to skinny water. The design is marvelously efficient for its purpose.

Rowing a drift boat is not difficult. If you can pilot an ordinary rowboat, you already have the physical coordination and directional sense of how each oar changes the boat's position. The main difference is that a drift boat gains steerageway--that difference in speed relative to the water that allows for maneuvering--not by going faster than the water (as does a rowboat on a lake) but by going slower. The oarsman rows against the current, in a sense "lowering" the boat down the river rather than trying to outrun it. And this approach makes for, among other things, more nimble maneuvering and improved fishing opportunities for angling passengers. All it takes are some basic skills and a little practice.

Reading the Water I've taught a number of people to row, and anglers tend to learn more quickly because they're already familiar with reading currents and with the behavior of moving water. The various configurations of currents and obstructions are almost limitless, especially in heavy, whitewater rivers. We're concerned here with water suitable to the novice rower--slow to medium-fast rivers, with bends, rock and obstructions, but no technical rapids or quirky hydraulics. And on such rivers, there are three basic categories of water reads:

Obstacles: When it comes to obstructions--boulders, logs, shoals--think of the letter "V." An obstacle shallow enough to hit with a boat typically leaves a disturbance on the surface; it splits the current into two diverging legs, forming a "V" with the apex pointed upstream. Avoid these points. When two obstacles--a pair of boulders, for instance--are close enough together, they funnel the water to a point, forming a letter "V" with apex downriver. Aim for these points. When you have more than one such "V"--in the shallow, rocky tailout of a pool for instance, or over a rocky shoal, where obstructions may cause a number of different V-shaped current tongues--as a general rule, the longest tongue indicates the most passable water.

Bends: Sharp bends in the river, large islands, and even some midriver shoals force the current to turn, forming an arc, with the fastest water on the outside and the slowest on the inside. You can read this water much as you would in fishing it--dividing the current into lengthwise bands or strips that differ in velocity.
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