Helpful hints
Float Tube Woes
By Dougald Scott
Float tubing is a wonderful way to enjoy fishing lakes: you can cover water that you could not reach from shore; you can carry your float tube to access locations which could not be reached by boat; your float tube fits in a relatively small package in the back of your car (it doesn't require a trailer and a launch ramp); and a top of the line float tube costs only a tiny fraction of what a boat would cost.
There are however, a couple of downsides to float tubing. One is maintaining your dignity while entering and exiting the water, even in the easier to use U-shaped float tubes. I know I have provided much entertainment to spectators while making my way into the water with fins and float tube...all that was lacking were the large cards with numbers on them, raised in the air to indicate my score on the bozo scale.
Bill Sunderland, in his excellent book, Fly Fishing California Stillwaters, gives some "helpful hints" for float tubers:
* String your rod and put on some sort of fly before you get in the water.
* "If you have to change a line or deal with a fouled tip while in the water, just drop the butt of the rod into the water and let it sink straight down until you can safely handle the rod without bending it." Don't forget to hang on to the rod while you are fooling around with the tip... rods don't float.
* "Consider taking two rods." Usually this means having one rod with sinking line and one with floating line. Sunderland suggests that novice tubers stick to one rod until they are comfortable with their set-up.
* "If you get in your tube on the bank and then move toward the water, walk backward."
* "To get somewhere in the water you go backward." When you are certain you are kicking in the right direction, pick a reference point on shore and keep it in the same orientation. You will still have to crane your neck to check where you are going at regular intervals, but perhaps not as often.
* "Don't drink coffee when you are going float tubing. Peeing is, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor, a pain in the butt. Sitting in a tube out in the water wrapped in neoprene and warm underwear is no place to have to go because there is no place to go. I know folks who wear adult diapers when float tubing, but that's your choice."
* "Be courteous to other float tubers. When the water is crowded, there usually are a number of tubers slowly trolling back and forth. Stay out of their lanes and don't force them to change direction. Also, stay far enough away from other tubers to allow them room to cast, including room for their back casts. They have a right to the water around them, as you do."