Center Console Boats Small Paddle Boat

A greenhorn goes whitewater rafting - Idaho State Journal

It will probably hit you as strange, but I’ve only rafted the rivers in Idaho a handful of times and the faster ones only twice. So when Vance Poulson with Weld Pro asked me to float a river last Saturday in one of his Raft Pro rafts, I jumped at the chance. The plan was to drift a low-key river that wouldn’t kill me but would still allow us to test out the rafts. I met him at his house, and we pumped up the rafts, slapped them together and loaded them up. They’re only 54 pounds, so they are easy for one guy to handle. He makes a canvas container that straps on the side to hold gear, a fishing rod and so forth. On the back of the raft, there was a flat rack to strap on a cooler for overnighters. We soon had all the gear loaded and were pushing off. Vance said there were at least 50 nice fishing holes nearby. We wouldn’t have time to hit them all, but we’d do a little fishing. At the first nice hole we came to, I tied on a Black Woolly bugger and hung a nice 14 to 15-inch rainbow. He went ape crazy and came 2 feet out of the water two to three times. We were mainly floating, but we did fish quite a bit, too. I didn’t keep count, but Vance had to have netted at least a dozen fish. At first, it was a low-key float. But soon we started hitting some Class II waters. Like I said, I’ve only floated the semi-swift rivers twice, and that was with someone else driving the raft, so my skill level is nonexistent. It seemed like I had an uncanny ability to turn right when I needed to be turning left and vice versa. I was also fairly successful in hitting every protruding boulder. In one tight spot, a big log had jammed on the left side, and there was a small spot to get by on the right. Naturally, I hit the log dead center. After a while, I was able to make it while Vance patiently waited. It’s easy to get in trouble fast if you don’t know what you’re doing. I can see how white water rafting could be addictive. It’s just that the logs worry me. I about got my Jon boat sucked in under a big snag when my two girls were little. We’d drift through some tighter chutes, and then it’d open up into some nice holes. I’d driven by this river a million times, but I never realized how many nice holes it had that are only accessible by floating. There were also a ton of little hot springs seeping down rock walls into the river. I found one side of a nice buck rack, so I had to strap that to the raft of course. Vance is a skilled rafter, and I learned a lot from him. He cautioned me to watch it while paddling in shallow water because it’s easy to hang a rock and snap off your paddle. For this reason, we both had an extra one strapped on our raft. That’d be a bad deal to get into the old proverbial “up a creek without a paddle” scenario. I know it was only my first time, but I didn’t feel like I did any good at all. I couldn’t hit the slots right and hit too many boulders, all of which could flip you in faster, rougher waters. This is going to take a while for me to get a hold of. It finally got time to leave, so we kicked it up a gear the last 2 to 3 miles. We’d spent a little too much time fishing. I can see how these rafts would be the ticket for floating rivers and fishing. You can hit a lot of waters that no one else can fish. I also asked him about the possibility of putting a trolling motor on one for lake fishing. They’d even hooked a small gas motor on one and jetted around. Hmmm, I may have just found a new assault weapon for me and Kolby to fish from. Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.