Once upon a time I drew a cartoon panel, pilot for a column I intended to call “Frank Angler.” That image set to prose: Frank sits in his float tube, fins dangling, his face mostly hidden by the shadow of a flats hat. In the distance swoop the inverted arches of the Golden Gate Bridge. Closer by bobs a buoy with a sign reading “Farallon Islands.”
Frank leans forward, his posture shouting determination. He stares down his rod to the tip, where the line doubles back toward the front of his tube. Frank’s tippet is knotted to the eye of a size 32/0, 6X-long streamer hook with a shank that runs all the way to the rear, bend and barb fitting neatly between Frank’s legs.
Bass people have seen frog poppers that look like this. Squint hard, use imagination, and you’ll recognize the silhouette and flippers of a fat sea lion, favorite meal for the “Red Triangle’s” white sharks.
Per the caption: “While members of Frank’s club doubted his judgment, everybody at the memorial recalled his dedication.”
Spring, early season, 4:30 p.m., about: I decide to launch an extemporaneous assault on my home lake — shakedown time, catch some fish maybe. I’d spent the winter not organizing tackle, but an April family trip forced me get some kit together. Since I’m going light, last-minute preparations take only an hour.
The last of these steps requires me to haul my cheap, U-style tube out of the garage, where I’ve stored it through the subfreezing months, perched atop a bristling array of outdoor tools: axes and a pickaxe, a pitchfork and various hoes, three broken-handled shovels, pruning shears, tree saws, also random lengths of sharp-edged steel and aluminum pipe.
You’d think that collection would do the job, but no. One good squeeze assures me it’s still holding air.
Again. Another year I have no good excuse to buy new.
On top of that, do I deserve a better float tube? When a buddy sold me an excellent pontoon boat some years ago, I found a perfectly sized rack that fit on the roof of my 1988, souped-down, all-wheel-drive Honda Civic wagon. To keep this brief, it died in 2009, but I saved it so my vehicle-mad son Max would have something to rebuild. Five years later, he did, loved it passionately for a year, and while souping it up removed my racks shortly before blowing a piston. That nifty craft now rests as idle as my ancient fiberglass Sunfish sailboat shell converted to a pram, an old, faded Fold-a-Boat, and a pair of sit-on-top-of kayaks — wet craft the kids love, but tippy enough to eject a paddler if his or her eyelids don’t blink in unison. Add to that a fat, blunt-backed Scanoe that I thought was a great idea, until maneuvering it solo — 13 feet and 90 pounds — above my head devolved from “Kind of a pain” to episodes where from my knees I screamed short, Anglo-Saxon words meaning “Sciatica!”
Excess, in other words. So much I have, however barely portable.
So . . . No. Though I could, of course, convince myself, if ever this damn thing would burst. But no joy. Originally purchased as a backup or a place to put children entering adolescence, after a decade of use, this U-boat’s bladder is clearly in better shape than mine.
At least I’ll pump it up tight. As tight as I can because that miracle bladder is also small enough than when dropped in cool water it looses a full quarter of its buoyancy. That’s a lot, since at full bloat it’s already strained by my size, a fact of life that still surprises me. Then I do as always: open the sunroof on my sedan, lay a carpet on top to prevent scratches, toss the U up there and arrange it so the back handle dangles down into the interior of the car. Inside the car, I hook one end of a high-quality bungee cord through the dangling handle, loop the cord around my rearview mirror mount, stretch it back to join its tail end at the tube. That completed, I pull a Ralph Wood, slipping each
reel of two rigged and assembled rods under my wiper blades so the shafts angle back along the orange tube like antenna on a ladybug. That will sound crazy to somebody who always uses a rod case — and it is — but if you often travel short distances with workhorse outfits ready to fish, consider how many times you’ve lost a tip section to a car door or trunk lid.
One caution about Ralph’s Rapid Transport System: don’t do something stupid if it starts to rain while you’re driving. All goes well, except that two hours later, I’m having an alarming “Oh dear” sinking feeling.
Because I am. Fast.
But first, let’s have a paean to modest inflatable objects that help us reach and fish so many, many cool places we could not otherwise access — remote ponds, parts of big lakes, even seas, foolishly . . . pockets of air we ride onto water. Thirty years or more, now, I’ve fished from puffy crafts, counting five, starting with a blow-up kayak that finally did, in slow motion, after being repeatedly punctured by the dorsal and pectoral spines of a monster channel catfish that an old, dear, mildly boozy, and highly excitable friend repeatedly banged against sidewall and floor chambers.
First tip and caveat: when you intend to float, chose your companions carefully. Avoid spirits, also.
And chose your water wisely.
From that kayak, patched so many times, I moved on to what I think was the first Buck’s Bag model produced for sale. I had a brilliant plan, which I floated to André Puyans one of the first times I met him.
Andy sank it. Never, ever, should I use my new craft on Putah Creek, upstream near the dam, where I’d planned to find my way around the big stone bluff at the end of the trail. He’d been there, done that, and concluded that tubing moving water is beyond reasonably perilous. Believe, he insisted, and I might save myself from a situation that could easily go south and get deep.
I remember eying Andy, wondering if a travail he’d survived had as much to do with his size as with problems inherent to tubes.
I can’t remember if I made up my mind, but one way or another, I never set sail on Putah, possibly because I’d heard about too many other drowning deaths there. Most occurred during the hot days of summer, when scorching ambient air temperatures enticed victims into Putah on the backs of dime-store inflatable rafts. Swollen by irrigation, Putah had plenty of places ready to flip these, dumping people into water 50 degrees colder than the uninformed might expect from the country it flowed through.
There’s no doubt that others have survived Putah floats. No doubt also that the majority of our national armada of float tubers have a fine sense of hazards created by moving water. A few may possess a skill set they’re convinced will keep them safe enough on waters they know well. That doesn’t sound like the case for the Phoenix man who drowned after “being thrown from a float tube below the Flaming Gorge dam on the Green River” — no details on another killed on the Clark Fork.
Those tragedies noted, decades after André’s caution, I’ve had few close calls with float tubes, because I don’t use them in rivers, except occasionally in a sluggish slough separate from a main flow. I have, maybe unwisely, adventured into well-protected saltwater bays, but only when confident of tides, waves, and weather. While there’s always a distant chance these adventures will turn Kon Tiki, such venues may be less perilous than many freshwater impoundments.
Take Pyramid Lake, for example. Alone and untutored, I first launched there one calm morning, then listened carefully as flat-water acoustics carried a conversation from two ladder casters speculating on some numbskull’s imminent demise — or mysterious Pyramid disappearance — when, not if, howling winds came up. It was kind of like hearing yourself nominated for a deadly Darwin Award.
I took heed. An hour later, back on land, I made sure to question the same laddermen about a fishery I clearly knew nothing about. Graciously deciding to mitigate my ignorance — as opposed to declaring “good riddance” — they filled me with caveats and other information, and one insisted on gifting me a big double-bugger rig, flies included.
Tip two, however obvious: know as much as you can about the water you enter. Speaking of winds, I’ve been blown long distances several times, though never quite far enough to require a passport. A few times I’ve chosen to land and walk back to my vehicle, wearing neoprene booties I carry for such events. You, too, likely have a similar system, because a cardinal rule for any water outing is Be Prepared: with sunscreen and plenty of water; and for headaches, strains or worst case scenarios brought on by exercise, a small, waterproof vial of aspirin. Some of those hard granola or energy bars will last months in a pocket — but avoid those studded with chocolate in the summer. Oranges provide energy, and in theory, potassium in bananas may help protect you from muscle cramps, but take fresh fruit only if your memory is excellent or your sense of smell entirely absent — think fermentation. A lightweight raincoat will also keep you warm when things get chillier than you anticipated — hypothermia really is a threat. Double up on items such as nippers and floatant and always carry a knife. Be very careful about any chemicals you carry, insect dope in particular, which according to one report ate a sizable hole through the harness and bladder of a float tuber well out on the water. He was sinking fast when help arrived.
And, of course, when conditions get hairy — a thunderstorm, for example, when you’re the highest point on a plane — hurry to safety.
But when it comes to stiff breezes or wind, you might not want to rush the decision to pull out and hike.
Especially if it’s evening.
If you’ve average luck in life, the atmosphere opposes you as soon as you start tubing back to your launch site. Don’t wail immediately or curse your fate. If this is a strong breeze, wind fierce enough to collapse a back cast — even to churn up small whitecaps — your luck actually may have just improved. Or it might if you carry a couple of medium to large dry flies tied bushy on a light wire hook — just palmered stiff hackle will do — and a “blow line” to let the wind “dap” the fly on the water’s surface. It’s a technique long used to great effect on the lakes of Ireland and Scotland. I like Rob Ketley’s setup, which this magazine published years ago. Load a spare spool that already has backing with 50 feet of 30-pound gel-spun polyethylene fishing line. This is your running line. Take six feet of polypropylene yarn from your fly-tying kit and lay it lengthwise along the running line. Tie one end of the yarn to the running line three feet up from its end. Tie the other end nine feet up. This is the blow line which, kite-like, will loft your fly on the breeze. Finally, to the end of the running line tie on four feet of 6 or 8-pound-test tippet material.
With your back to the wind, f in hard while holding your rod high — the longer the rod, the better. Let out line enough that your fly taps the water as you bull against the waves. You’re essentially working your wake, so anywhere from twenty feet to forty feet behind you is good. Let the fly touch down only a moment, dancing it four or five times in one place. If no joy ensues, drift your rod over to tease another spot five or ten feet away. You’re imitating an ovipositing insect or maybe a terrestrial fighting to lift off.
Takes are typically violent. Take a Xanax, because most first savage hits will miss the fly — I think many are attempts to soak a bug that the fish will swirl back to inhale. You want to be there for second and third knocks, so if you still see the fly or any part of it, leave it sit until the fish returns. If, sans recommended medication, you haul back too quickly, aerialize the fly to settle again in the same spot. Providing you didn’t tear too big a hole in the water, the fish will be looking for drowning prey. Believe me, you won’t mind the muscle burns and a calf cramp if fish are near the surface waiting on caddises or a secret crane fly hatch. And surprisingly often they are, even when you can’t see bugs around you. On many blown-looking evenings, I’ve taken more fish commuting back to the put-in than in all the day’s other hours.
Yes, unless you’re wearing neoprenes, you may ship a little water, a little more if your waders aren’t pulled up high enough, shoulder straps tight, belt cinched. Again, and obviously, don’t try this if the wind and waves are such that you really should be off the lake.
Other perils? Hypothermia, for sure — a major topic of its own. And Robert Frost almost summarized rules for surviving boat and jet-ski traffic, here adapted: “Good defenses make good neighbors.” So in areas where it’s impractical to set and collect mines — “leave wild places the way you found them” — I like to tape a red laser to my million-watt mini-light to amplify my warning. On lakes where maiming is likely, more is necessary, so consider M-80s with waterproof wicks to launch with a Wrist Rocket. Always check the slingshot’s tubing for UV light damage — also the wax covering on flares you carry for your gun. (Remember to aim the second shot low and inside.)
That aside . . . I’ve got to guess that the vast majority of float-tube accidents happen at launch and landing. Certainly they did back when. Nureyev would have looked clumsy, slipping flippers through straps and setting himself in one of the old donuts while it was floating in the shallows. Sometimes I tried to avoid rod breaks and face plants by stepping into the Big O when it was still on shore, pulling the tube up to my waist, then walking backward to the water, half blind. Since few people had seen float tubes in those days, I got looks and loud laughs. Eventually I learned to stare back, then to say solemnly, “You just wait, Madam. Next year everybody will be wearing these.”
U and V tubes have reduced these trips and tumbles, and belly boats are hardly rare anymore. Even so, it’s worth mentioning that human beings aren’t the only species that finds smallish personal floatation devises bewildering.
Beavers. Beavers in remote places. Beavers in remote places raising their kits.
Twice I’ve been treated to surprise visits. One came during a dark and stormy night while fishing a small lake with a friend. Things already were spooky enough when I began to hear a series of slaps by at least three beavers who paralleled us as we kicked to the opposite shore. Discomforting, for sure, but that time none came too close.
Unlike, say, a major midday confrontation in a quarry pond just off the Feather River near Oroville — a hidden water, access was legal, maybe, but angling in a lot of it was impossible because of a moat dug around most of the bank. This surrounded much of the pond with a channel of stagnant water while creating a long, sickle-shaped island.
Boats were not allowed, and it’s possible I was the first float tube in there. At least I found interesting, how sanguine seemed the giant carp and squawfish swimming below in me in the water clear down to between fifteen and twenty feet.
Not my targets. Instead, I made my way to the inside of Sickle Island, where dense trees shaded the bank. A half dozen small bass took a popper as I worked along with the main water at my back, so I was happily and innocently minding the business of fishing when a grenade exploded a foot away from my port-side stripping hand.
The impact sent a wave of water onto and over my head; the cavitation caused my left side to dip sharply, then rock back almost as hard.
As a longtime resident of Oakland, I instantly considered and dismissed the idea of a 12-gauge blast — this was way bigger. As a frequent visitor to Oroville waters, I knew a grenade or some other militia heavy weaponry was possible and was wondering where whatever it was came from when another bomb blasted just as close off my starboard side. But wait — half a second before this new cavern opened — was that a tail?
Yes. The size of a platter, I saw, as the owner glided just ahead and under me, port to starboard, passing so close that its teeth were within reach of my rod.
Water distorts size. No way this rodent’s body was as big as a friend’s lab appropriately named Moose. Then again, adult beavers normally weigh between thirty and sixty pounds, and the record is one hundred and ten, so. . . .
Four more times he surfaced — it must have been its size and aggression that made me think it was a male — smash, splash me, swim under, repeat. Twice he circled me, clockwise and counter, veering very, very close. We made and sustained eye contact several times, but I still don’t think he knew what I was. The last eruption of this series came from the front, the tail big as a serving platter slamming down just ahead of my stripping basket.
Too close. And since I was too big and alien for it to bother, What is the problem here?
Territory — it had to be, so I looked to shore. Sure enough, twenty feet beyond where I’d dropped my last cast beside the bank, no more than ten yards away, I saw the bulge of a lodge built beneath overhanging trees.
Got it. Mea culpa maxima. I immediately began finning away, to leave the Beav’s house behind.
Ho. Boy. Did that make things worse. I mean scary crazy. Now he was slamming as fast as he could recover from each blast. Sometime during the onslaught I recalled my father telling me about a beaver that drowned a dog that chased him into deep water near its dam.
Even so, I was getting seriously annoyed. Now what? You can see I’m moving away from your place, so back off.
It didn’t. So I turned to look again toward the lodge. On their sweep in that direction, my eyes got a glance of another — tail? — ahead of me . . . in the direction I’d been moving. And this one wasn’t much bigger than a serving spoon. Which meant — Every foot I’d been finning away from the lodge had pushed Beaver Baby farther away from home and safety.
From twenty yards out into the deep water, I saw the V of Kit heading home. Of course he was shepherded by the Dad of the Year, who stopped several times to glare at me with what I believe was a gimlet eye, though it’s harder to tell with rodents.
Penultimately, also anomalously, but still worth mentioning . . .
For three years, a relative invalided to a wheelchair required frequent ferrying to medical facilities eighty-four miles away — eighteen trips, and not covered by Medicare. According to her outraged doctor, the only local medical transport company offered this service for $9,000 per appointment. Instead, I would each time rent a wheelchair-accessible van from a town seventy miles away, pick her up, and so on.
The vans were mostly fine, except for some that demanded I dead-lift the chair and patient while bent sharply forward. It was only a matter of time, I knew, and so it was. While securing said relative right after she had a successful brain-shunt operation, I had one of those Oh No moments. For the next few months, I spent long mornings waiting and praying for the back and sciatica pain to evolve into mere pins-and-needles numbness. An extremely young physical therapist assigned me various exercises that hurt a lot, but were useless. She seemed to take this personally, so at the end of my last visit, she warned me, “If you don’t start improving, we’ll need to start talking about surgery.” Well, no. And since it was early spring, I went float tubing — shakedown, maybe catch some fish. It was some hours after I came in that I noticed, “Hey, I don’t hurt.” No, I didn’t connect the dots.
The respite lasted about a week. Pain was beginning to return when I happened to tube again. This time, waddling out of the water after three hours, I said, “Eureka!”
What followed was one of those real-life incidents that just looks silly in print. Suffice it to say that soon after this second outing — which seemed to heal this particular problem for good, although following floats may have prevented problems — I mentioned this miracle to a guy who turned out to work at a large physical-therapy clinic.
He could not have been less surprised, though he might have pretended a little, I thought. Yes, of course finning about in a float tube helped: they put patients in these — yes, tubes like the kind people fish from — in an on-site pool to treat certain types of injuries. The specific type, my doctor later informed me, was caused by strains of a major hip muscle that swelled enough to put pinch a major nerve heading from hip to leg. The pain that process created only encouraged the muscle to swell more, and so it goes.
How about that.
And how about that trip I started couple of thousand words ago.
Not counting the inflated kayak this time, my best guess is that I’ve float tubed a minimum of five hundred times, suffering nothing worse than sunburn, chattering teeth, insults to my intelligence and fashion sense, and the rare beaver trauma. Thousands of fish I’ve caught, of at least ten species, the largest a wild, seventeen-pound rainbow that repeatedly rammed my legs in the last ten minutes of ninety. So many beautiful places, some still secret: they blend together into a soft, still dusk, copper sunset limning silhouettes of trees, swallows leaving the field above to bats. I hear leopard frogs sometimes. I have shipped rods for long moments, relaxing as completely as ever I will.
But last week, for some tangled reason, the usual temperature-related U deflation also involved a misdesigned spreader stick supposed to keep the arms open, which resulted in me unclipping the buckle of the belt that runs between my legs — you know, the one critical to keeping a passenger hanging safely over the depths.
In theory, the butt mesh should have supported me, but one of the U chambers went northwest and the other southeast, forming an ever-opening oblique V, ends suddenly wider apart than my shoulders— As I tried to close this gap with elbows and arms, each hand clinging to a rod rather desperately while sliding down until I was barely high enough to peek out at a shoreline forty or fifty feet away — it occurred to me, Well, this is a first.
It wasn’t just a question of my rods or my life, because one wore a favorite Galvan reel I’d been battering about for decades. On the other hand, the kids were doing well enough to want to watch them for a while, Sophie soon to graduate, Max loving engineering. . . .
Water was pouring over the back of my waders, but this wasn’t a decision to make rashly, made more difficult because I felt so ridiculous.
Even now I believe I’d have done the right thing. But I’ll never know, because weary and semi-crucified, a significant distance from shore, I was startled to feel the tips of my fins touching bottom, then to discover I could walk en pointe, barely, in more or less the right direction, along a subsurface ridge I suddenly but only vaguely remembered.
Back on the bank, panting hard and sitting on my ass in the grass of a small park sandwiched between big homes, rods safe beside me, I heard what might have been the scratch of a match. I paid it no attention until a couple of coughs followed, then looked up to see a college-aged kid sucking hard on a doobie.
He nodded. I tried to.
“I’ve lived here a while, you know?” he said pleasantly. “And, like . . . I don’t think I’ve seen anybody do that. Get to land like you did, I mean.”
“No?” I managed.
“Pretty sure,” he answered. “I mean, I was starting to think you were really in trouble, so, maybe I should do something? But then I got a text. See?” I did, because he held up his cell phone, screen still bright.
By exerting all my control, I did not say “Yeah, to land like that you need lots of experience.”
“But now, like —” he continued after a long exhale — “I’m glad. Guess I would have looked pretty stupid, you know?”
I was toying with the idea of answering “That would make two of us,” when he coughed hard, gagged out “Good shit,” then said he hoped I wouldn’t mind if he asked if I smoked weed, to which I was welcome. No thanks. But if he could drop something hot, very hot, on this little
U-boat. . . .
