Not so funny story...

We met a guy coming down the lower Duc a few years ago at Lyendecker's...he was in a brand new wood drifter that he had built from a kit, and had never rowed a boat before in his life.

A "friend" told him that the lower Duc is a good spot to take his first boat ride.

His boat had two holes in it, and was taking on water...they had to bail constantly as they rowed out, and it took a while because they waited at every drop for another boat to go through so they could follow them.

Dude was white as a sheet when I gave him a turnaround, never even fished he was so scared.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Don't be that guy.

Buddy boat with another experienced rower, and have a rower in your boat to show you the ropes.

Like Dan said, tooling around in a lake won't do much for you, you'll have to be in moving water to get any useful experience.

To get away from a hazard, point the bow at it and row.

This is a piece of advice for all rowers; if you get in trouble, keep rowing. Row hard. Row until you're upside down.

If you feel sketchy about a spot, get out and scout it out. Rope it down if you need to. Bring a lot of rope.

Have someone help you set up your boat for proper balance and oar length. It can be shown to you twice as fast as it would take to write it out.

Most experienced rowers don't use Oar-Rites...most beginners probably should. They can remove one sketchy variable from your learning curve, which is keeping your blades perpindicular to the water without having to look at them.

Don't freak out, stay calm...everything's easier when you do that.

Consider not fishing your first couple of floats...it's a distraction you probably don't need...remember, you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of fishing out of the boat, missing a couple of days at the front end isn't going to be a big deal.

One last note; you will learn over time that your boat is far more capable at doing things that you at this point would never consider doing. They are very well-engineered machines that are really, really good at doing their job. Your limiting factor is almost always going to be your skills and your confidence, and those will grow with time. Some people just "get it", and others need a lot of practice before tackling tougher runs and drops.

Figure out which one you are and act accordingly.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Or, you can chuck all that and learn the way I did...have someone drop you off at the Mill on the Sauk during low water when you're 17 years old, put you on the sticks, and drive away.

Worked fine for me, but I wouldn't recommend it any more than I'd recommend the Sol Duc for your first float