Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Sitting low in a drift boat, raft or jet boat forces a 90-degree hip angle and puts the rower's eyes below the front angler's shoulders. Raising the seat several inches restores sightlines down the river, allows a longer oar for more leverage, and takes the day-long load off the back, hips and knees.
Brett Lowry founded Trout Boat Cap'n, which builds rowing benches and cooler-mounted seat platforms for drift boats, rafts and jet boats, and he fishes and guides in eastern Oklahoma.
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Why are so many fishing boats uncomfortable to row?
The jet boats used on Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma trout water are essentially large john boats with a motor, and oar towers were bolted to the gunwales as an afterthought once fly anglers started using them. Those boats need the most rowing power of any: they are heavy, built to take rock strikes at speed rather than to be light, the hull shape does not help, and the rower is pushing the boat backwards down the river. Boat builders say openly that seat height is left to the buyer to figure out.
What does raising the rowing seat do for boat control?
Whitewater guides sit high in their rafts for a reason. Coming up a few inches puts the rower's eye level at the front angler's shoulder instead of behind them, so the water ahead can be read early - both for setting up fishing water and for spotting the downstream V before it matters. Back strokes get more powerful, crossing dead water gets faster, and moving side to side across the river gets more efficient. Owners describe the change as having more command of the boat rather than relying on grit.
How does seat height change the oars you should run?
A higher seat moves the fulcrum, which means a longer oar can be worked comfortably inside the boat - a bigger lever for the same effort. Raising the seat in one boat took the oars from 9 feet to 9 and a half; a 10-foot oar also worked, but the 9 and a half felt best after a season. In a newer boat, the seat went up six inches from cooler height and the same 9-and-a-half-foot oar was the pick. There are formulas for oar length, but the final call is feel.
What is wrong with bolting a seat straight to a cooler?
Floor space in a boat is scarce, so the cooler that is already aboard becomes the seat. Stacking two-by-fours underneath it gets the height but is unstable, and bolting a chair through the cooler lid enlarges the holes until they are the size of quarters, leaving the seat moving around and an expensive cooler ruined. A platform sized to a standard 45-, 50- or 65-quart cooler lid spreads the load across the whole lid, clamps down on thick rubber gasketing so it cannot slip, takes a fixed or swivel pedestal, and leaves storage underneath for tools, fly boxes and tippet.
What brings striped bass into the lower Illinois River in Oklahoma?
Several Ozark streams run toward the Arkansas River, and some are short tailwaters below large reservoirs that hold 50 to 55 degrees year round. When the generators run day and night through the hottest part of summer, striped bass push up out of the Arkansas River into the lower Illinois River to feed on gizzard shad, and the narrow valley means the river comes up several feet within minutes once the power is on. Fish run roughly 18 to 30 inches, taken on 8-weights - occasionally 10-weights - with 15- to 20-pound tippet, and a white Clouser Minnow is hard to beat because it looks and moves like a gizzard shad. The main problem is keeping a hooked striper out of the sunken brush piles that sit even in the middle of the river.
Why fish frog poppers for smallmouth instead of nymphs?
Above the reservoir, about 65 miles of the upper Illinois River is designated wild and scenic with no motors allowed above a tributary confluence, and it is smallmouth water. Frog-bodied poppers are easy for new anglers to cast and pick up quickly, and working a popper keeps people engaged in a way that watching an indicator for a day does not. The targets are anything a smallmouth can ambush from - shoreline, log piles, boulders, rock - fished on 1X or 2X. A typical day is a six-mile float starting at 6:30 in the morning and finishing by one o'clock, because afternoon air temperatures hit 105 degrees and the fishing shuts down.
What is the sand bass run and how do you fish it?
Sand bass - white bass, and the Oklahoma state fish - start running out of the reservoirs and up the rivers to spawn when the water reaches 55 degrees, generally around mid-March. Small shad patterns on a 4- or 5-weight are the whole rig, and once a school is located a fish often comes on the second strip, so the day becomes get it off, throw it back out, repeat. The hybrid is a cross between the sand bass and the striper; all three look similar, and the sand bass is the smallest of them, though pound for pound it fights as hard.
Key takeaways
- Raise the rowing seat until your knees sit below your hips - the 90-degree hip angle of a low seat is what wears out backs, hips and shoulders over a full day.
- A higher seat moves the oar fulcrum, so expect to go up roughly six inches in seat height and about half a foot in oar length before the setup feels right.
- Do not bolt a seat through a cooler lid; the holes wallow out to the size of quarters and ruin the cooler. Use a platform that spreads the load across the whole lid and clamps on rubber gasketing.
- Netting a fish from the captain's seat is easier from a higher position, because the steeper arm angle adds effective reach while one hand stays on an oar.
- Striped bass push up eastern Oklahoma tailwaters out of the Arkansas River during the hottest part of summer when the generators run; fish 8-weights and white Clouser Minnows on 15- to 20-pound tippet.
- Carry two coolers on a float, one for drinks and ice and one kept dry for food - lunch is something a captain can control, and weather and fish are not.
