 Craig Fields is the Director of Electronic Communications for Gun Owners of America. The Timeless Beauty of Floatfishing by Craig Fields There is something about a river and a canoe that affirms Man's place within the Creator's plan in a way unique to the outdoors. The floatfisher drifts past ever-changing scenery, with ever-changing fishy spots to cast at, intent on his angling pursuits while constantly being bombarded with comfortable reminders of the grandeur that is our planet. This past season, I completed a three-canoe two-day float on a fine Virginia smallmouth river. The 52 fish I caught paled in comparison to superb fellowship at our mid-river island camp, the constant sightings of bald eagles, and the special treat of porterhouse steaks cooked streamside over a grill. Floatfishing is an activity that defies classification. It is at its core a method of fishing, for rare is the veteran floatfisher who ever steps into a canoe without a rod handy. It is an outdoor skill, for paddling ability is an integral key to the experience, and often determines the destination. It is wonderful exercise suitable to young and old alike, for canoe fishing simply is not a sedentary activity. And it is therapy, for none but the coldest of hearts can resist its life-affirming allure. If you find fishing to be an enjoyable activity, and if you agree that rivers are beautiful gifts, you owe it to yourself to at least try floatfishing. What Floatfishing Entails The theory behind floatfishing boils down to letting the river do the majority of the work. Current flow moves the canoe down the river, and the anglers pick up paddles only to reposition the canoe or negotiate the occasional rapid. The rest of the time, they are casting to likely fish-holding cover-- or perhaps munching a sandwich while watching a bald eagle soar along its daily hunting route. Basic equipment is, of course, a canoe or flatbottomed johnboat, paddles, life vests, fishing gear, and transportation. A typical two-person one-canoe float begins with two vehicles being driven to the designated take-out area. The vehicle without the canoe on top is locked and left at that location. Both persons ride in the vehicle with the canoe to the upstream put-in. They then float down the river, catching fish and enjoying the outdoors. At the end, the canoe is placed atop the vehicle waiting at the take-out, then the floaters drive back up to retrieve the vehicle that was left at the put-in. Canoes can be rented for reasonable prices alongside basically every great floatfishing river in the country. That rental can also include shuttle service, whereby the vehicular manipulations mentioned above are done for you: you simply show up and float. Note: the outdoor recreation centers of military bases usually rent canoes to active duty or retired military personnel for extremely low prices that reflect the service to our country of such persons. Really, with the exception of multiple-canoe group floats that require more planning regarding shuttle logistics, floatfishing is a simple way to get on the river. Angling Success: Why Floatfishing Is Best In my home state of Virginia, we are blessed with numerous non-tidal rivers that are literally full of catchable fish. Waders using a few spinners can catch dozens of bass and bream on any given summer day. Our large impoundments and lakes, on the other hand, are typical. Expert anglers do reasonably well, and novices are often skunked. The one great advantage to floatfishing is that your lure is cast every time to "new" water. It is impossible to cast to all of the "good" locations due to the effects of current, and so fishing pressure is rarely, if ever, an issue. The river environment is also, quite often, more conducive to angling success. In the typical large impoundment, detailed knowledge of breaklines and seasonal fish movements are undoubtedly required to separate the skilled from the lucky. On most floatfishing streams, however, there simply is not enough water for the fish to escape being found by the determined caster. This is not to say that floatfishing is easy or without skill. The veteran will outfish the novice almost every trip of the canoe train. Rather, it underscores that if the river is suitable for floating, even the novice has a reasonable chance at having a "good" day. River fish, especially here in Virginia, are engaged in serious competition with their brethren for food. The fish that reaches the minnow first may be the only one that eats today. Anglers can exploit this truth-- and knowing where, within the limited confines of the riverbanks, the fish are likely to be stacked to catch that minnow, can truly spell the difference between Kodak memories and just another day on the water. Yet, this is not a treatise on how to fish while floating. Anyone who judges an overnight canoe floatfishing expedition based solely on the number of fish caught is simply missing the point. The point is to achieve separation from the pressures of modern existence and not replace them with the pressure of finding scattered fish on a large body of water that rocks and rolls with the wakes of other weekend warriors. In other words, the allure of floatfishing is to hear the soft gurgling of the shoals, letting the river carry you around the next bend where a startled wood duck erupts mere feet from your paddle, all the while allowing you to concentrate on hitting that next big rock where a smallmouth almost certainly resides. There is a curious dichotomy within the floatfisher's mind. On the one hand, a sense of peace exists, exemplified by taking a few moments to stare intently at a sleek river otter as you float past; on the other, a bizarre desire to cast more often as new holes constantly appear. I am convinced that a day float in a canoe is mainly an angling excursion, whereas an overnight float is mainly an adventure. It matters not if the adventure is one that has been completed successfully and without incident many times over; the very act of camping on an island in the middle of a river serves to remove this activity from the realm of "going fishing." The success of a dayfloat is determined by fish strikes juxtaposed against scenery; the success of an overnighter is determined by the sizzle of steaks on the grill juxtaposed against one evening topwater strike. Do I favor the multi-day floatfishing trip? Absolutely. Are most of my floatfishing trips overnighters? No way. That is because a day spent fishing is a jewel beyond price no matter what happens-- rarely can I outfit my "expedition" and divorce myself from the vagaries of modern existence for days at a time. But I can steal an afternoon to go fishing with some regularity, and my method of choice is still floatfishing. During those dayfloats catching fish becomes magnified in importance. Anyone who spends hours casting and says he doesn't care if he catches anything might be deluding himself, for while all fishing is fun, fishing that is successful is always much, much, more fun. Floatfishing usually means more fish caught and fewer truly fishless days. On Virginia smallmouth rivers, unless the water is a chocolate mess, just about anyone can catch a few bass, even immediately after a cold front. The only true rule of thumb is that if fishing is tough, work slower, deeper, and more methodically. But even when the "pattern" has to be worked out with skill, on-water trial, and numerous casts, the floatfisherman has a better chance of scoring than the reservoir angler. Much more frequently, the real problem is making certain you get to the take-out on time: bypassing productive water in the interest of time is the excruciating decision of the floatfisherman. And I would rather do that than motor in to the ramp in disgust any day. There is pain associated with hard-core floatfishing. The upper thighs scream objections when hours pass on a canoe seat; the tailbone adds a groan. Island camping, no matter how carefully you prepare the tent site, always seems to provoke a geographical upheaval-- and the rock will invariably contact the kidneys or the small of the back. Shoulders become sunburned and tight from paddling. Frisky smallmouths are masters at slipping a hook from their jaw to your hand at boatside. Shins are barked as canoes are lifted off of mid-current rocks. But such things only add character to the successful floatfishing expedition. There is one particular injury to the skin, completely painless and rather odd when first experienced, that is the hallmark of the successful floatfishing trip: Bass-lip thumb. Perhaps the origin of the "thumbs-up" symbol of triumph, this unique condition occurs when the skin of the thumb is abraded due to continual friction when lip-landing bass all day long. May your thumb, abraded or not, be lifted high, for a trip down the river in a canoe or johnboat is a spiritual success, no matter what. Craig Fields is the Director of Electronic Communications for Gun Owners of America. |
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