What happens to these boats once they turn turtle? Do they submerge, float or somewhere in the middle?. I've noticed that drift boat designs usually have a fore and aft deck to sit on and so I wondered what owners are placing in these areas? Is anyone putting foam into them for extra flotation? You see that, being the new guy to this style of boat, I have concerns about my ability to sit on the correct side, top rather than bottom, and furthermore I don't want to have my boat on the bottom. I'm sure there will be a pleasant learning curve but in the attempt of self-preservation there are some questions I like to ask right upfront :-)

Commercial drift boat builders started applying for and usually received "exemptions" from built in flotation rules. They argued it was safer for a drift boat to sink and leave the passengers floating, rather than to have it flopping around wopping drifting passengers after a flip.

Wooden boats and honeycomb core boats tend to fill up with water but not to sink, so the top of gunwale is semi-flush with the surface. Molded fiberglass and aluminum boats sink like a stone........if they don't have built in flotation.

In either situation how do you retrieve a boat of that size one is full of water? Do you stay near it and try to affect its destination? I've been thrown out of canoes with a fraction of that amount of water and although I prevailed (slowly) it was scary.

I swamped a drift boat once. I wasn't rowing but we did swamp. We hung on to the boat until it got near a log jam and then we swam for it. I got on the log jam and kicked it loose. Then it bellied up on a sand bar and we bailed it out. All we lost was one pair of glasses.

I flipped my Dayak at Wire Fence in Desolation Canyon last year, because I was an idiot and went the wrong way. Dave Inskeep rowed up to me while I breast stroked with one hand while hanging on to my boat with the other. Whit Inskeep hit me right between the eyes with a throw bag so hard I almost saw double for a few seconds.

Dave rowed us both to shore, about 100 yards above Three Fords Rapid, and we got everything ship shape. Had a beer. Went on our way. I pretended to be cool as a cucumber.

This was last year at Joe Hutch--about a mile above Wire Fence, where I lunched it.

Its not like a ten mile tack on Bear Lake. Things happen so quickly. Glad you made it okay. I'm 60 but I think that the Delaware will be okay for me.

I'd love to drift and fish the Delaware someday. I won't say grew up but I was razed in New Jersey. The Delaware didn't have the dams then. I did see the Red Knots in the mud flats South of Camden last April. And the Horseshoe Crabs coming in to spawn. That was quite a spectacle.

I live in Easton which is where the Lehigh and the Delaware Rivers join. Simply Beautiful, historic, still affordable. The river wanders for miles through early American historical lands like those you learned about in school. There may be a few exciting riffles (Fowl Rift, New Hope and so forth) but generally easygoing. Up North the West Branch of the Delaware is famous for drift boats and native Brownies.
The Lehigh is more for you experienced oarsmen. There is a dam that has releases to regulate water levels for recreationists and the river can get pretty wild in places. It is uniquely "east coastish" as it is a Native Brown Trout stream as well as a warm water fishery (Smallies, Musky, Pickerel, panfish and Channels).

The river you describe sounds very nice. The brown trout could be naturally produced, but not native. Brown trout are native to Europe....and a bit of Asia....from Scandinavia to Iran. They were introduced into North America and populations have become established in many locations.

Ahh......that is correct. Natualized is what I meant. Self-sustaining to some degree. Which trout are native to the Northeast? Rainbows I guess are it. Aren't Brookies actually Char?
I can hardly wait to Float it again some day.

Brook trout are indeed char, as are lake trout and bull trout....arctic char are char! Native to the east coast of North America and Great Lakes region. Translocated populations are found throughout western US. Perhaps the world....I'm not sure about that.

Rainbow trout are native to western North America and portions of eastern Asia - southern California/northern Mexico to Kamtchatka, Russia. They have been established for angling throughout the world. Rainbow trout seem to be a post-glacial colonizer of the North American landscape - they were historically found in waters up to major falls in the coastal systems. Most of the famous rainbow trout fisheries in Montana are naturalized introductions.

Cutthroat trout have a longer history in North America, based on their more extensive biogeogrphy. They are found in the isolated interior western U.S. basins (Lahontan in Nevada and Bonneville in Utah), upper Columbia, Colorado, Rio Grande, South Platte, Snake, and Yellowstone river basins. They crossed the Continental Divide at least 4 times - upper Columbia to upper Missouri in the Glacier National Park region, Snake to Yellowstone via the Two Ocean Creek divide, between the Colorado and South Platte, and somehow they got into the Arkansas River system (Rio Grande drainage). I am unaware of the likely routes of movement in the later two cases. In the first two, there are water connections between the Pacific and Atlantic that facilitated the colonization.

Trout did not occur in the North Platte River, so all those rainbows in the Grey Reef area of Wyoming are introduced.

Common names of these fishes is not helpful in understanding their relationships. Brown trout and Atlantic salmon are in one genus; coho, chinook, pink, sockeye, and chum salmon and cutthroat, rainbow, gila, and Arizona trout are in another genus.

Eric, I’m in horticulture and understand the need for botanical name as. Common names confuse people and are imprecise. If I’m correct the the only coldwater year round stream fish we had originally would have been just the brookie.