Having a drift boat may not be quite as good as it may seem at first. Yeah, it looks great, you can float the river whenever you want. This can be pretty appealing, especially when the river is high and difficult to fish from the bank. The problem is that the boat owner is usually the guy who does most of the rowing. If you can fish and row at the same time, you are one of a kind. So heres where you wind up, you spend $4000 or $5000 on a boat and get to row your pals around so they can catch all of the fish. This doesn't sound like that good of a deal to me.

This month Randal, Chris and I took a float trip down the Yakima to fish the skawala hatch. It turned out to be one of the best days of fishing I can remember. I don't think we went 10 minutes the entire trip without catching a fish. We don't count the number of fish we catch, but Randal said there were 9 doubles (two fish on at the same time) and I think that's probably pretty accurate. The point is that we were catching lots of big fish, and Randal, who owns the boat, caught no fish. In fact he never picked up a rod. If I had been rowing, at some point I would have said "take the oars and pass the rod". He seemed to enjoy the rowing and watching us catch fish. I'm not that self-actualized, I'm still selfish enough to want to catch some fish.

Boat fishing is very different from fishing on foot. Sometimes when I go fishing from the bank with someone else, we hardly talk at all. We wind up fishing so far away from each other, we might as well be fishing alone. Almost all of the conversation takes place in the truck on the way there and the way back. This conversation can be the best part of the trip. In a boat there is usually lots of conversation all day long. Much of this conversation is in the form of either philosophy or laugh therapy. Sometimes the philosophy is the laugh therapy.

When it's Randall, Chris and I in the boat the trips fit like an old shoe, no pretense or self censorship. We cut straight to the laugh therapy without worrying about anybodies feelings or deep inner thoughts. This is hardball comedy so leave your touchy feely, politically correct sensitivities at home. Alan Alda would slit his wrists in the first half-hour, but for me this laugh therapy is the most effective cure I've found for the stresses of modern day life.

If you are thinking about getting a drift boat, my advice is "just do it", your pals will be glad you did.