If You Can't Row, You Can't Go

Last weekend marked by rowing debut for a full-fledged fishing trip on the Pere Marquette river. Sure, I've rowed my FishCat 13 locally for a bit on the Huron, but those were mostly short training runs of one sort or another.

My Dad and I had planned to fish the PM over the Holiday break. I'm relocating the storage for my raft anyway, so needed to have it in Mt. Pleasant by the end of December anyway, so what the hell? Might as well give it a shot.

Of course, this caused some inner angst. As a former Boy Scout, the motto "Be Prepared" is always resonating in my head. Are my rowing skills up for this? What about a capsize? How long IS the float; certainly don't want to do the last hour in the dark! A mishap with my 69-year-old father could prove catastrophic. Fortunately, he's tough and good-natured and was even more up for the adventure than I.

One key aspec of the preparation was the "Oh Sh!t Bag". A full set of dry clothes in a dry bag was procured and packed. Dry and warm is happy. Wet and cold is NOT.

I arranged a car spot, did some research on prime Winter spots and we were off! Launch at the Green Cottage ramp went very smoothly. Within just a few feet I realized that my rowing skills were just fine. In general I was over-rowing, but I suppose that's a natural instinct. Biggest challenge seemed to be staying on the inside of sharp bends.

We successfully stopped at the first significant hole below the reach of walk-ins to give things a go. Of course by this time I learned lesson one. You get HOT rowing. And then you STOP. Brrr. But before long I had things going a bit more smoothly.

At the Clay Banks area we stopped to fish a few key Winter spots. Pretty quickly I hooked, and then lost, my first steelhead of the day. Afterward I glanced at the raft floating a few feet away. "Hmmm, was that right pontoon just underinflated? Seems like that side's a good bit low..." I thought. Naturally this put the brain into overdrive. Sure wish I'd thought to pack a pump. Shortly after I hooked and landed a nice brown trout. Catching fish tends to quiet the mind, so off we went.

I navigated the bottom of the Clay Bank nicely - almost looked like I knew what I was doing. A bit downstream Dad spotted a couple of runs that looked promising. Sure enough, it was! Three drifts in I find myself hooked up to a feisty skipper! NIIIICE! Not the biggest fish, but he had spirit and some great Winter colors. While catching steel with a guide is always great, catching one unguided still gives me an unparalleled thrill.

Hopping in to depart, I noticed that the right side of the raft was now considerably lower. At this point, we made a concerted effort to put some water behind us. A stop at Waddell's yielded nothing, but marked the beginning of the challenging part of the day.

With the right pontoon losing air, two results began to emerge. First, the handling of the raft changed considerably. It was more sluggish to correct and had a tendency to drift right. Second, the lower pivot point to the oarlock both reduced leverage and made it harder to clear the water on the upstroke. Unfortunately, this also coincided with some more challenging tight spots in the water above Gleason's Landing. Somehow I kept it together and only bounced us through a few trees. Of course Dad's laughing the whole time and having a blast as I drag him through the branches! It's good to have a good companion for such adventures.

By the time we reached Gleason's the sun was starting to arc toward the horizon. And the raft had become pretty tough to row in any semblance of control. But we got it landed, located my truck and trailer and loaded up. My target had been to pull out by 4:30pm and I hit it nearly on the nose. We would have liked to have made more fishing stops, but considering this was out maiden voyage I was pretty satisfied. Nobody drowned. Fish were caught. And best of all confidence was gained. I CAN do this!

-Sean-