Technique
Published: 29th of July 2022 • Last updated: 17th of April 2023
There’s nowhere on your favorite lake you can’t fly fish with a belly boat (or float tubes, as they’re also known) beneath you. Get aboard one of these strange-looking vessels, and fly fishing becomes a sport for the arms, head, and legs. Here’s what you need to know to get started.
Originally a clever adaptation of the inner tubes found in tires, the belly boat has evolved. Today’s version is usually a seat with an inflatable tube that curls around it in a ‘U’ shape, with the open end allowing the fly fisher easy access to the seat.
A retaining bar keeps you in place while your legs dangle down from the front of the seat, ready to provide the power. A mesh line tray attaches between you and the retaining bar so that you don’t have line floating all around you when you cast. So it serves a similar purpose as a stripping basket would do on shore.
Here's how it works:
So, you’ve taken your first tentative steps down the slipway and for probably the first time in your life, you’re sitting in a chair, up to your hips in water. Now what?
Well, as with riding a bike, a lot of it you’ll pick up through doing it rather than just reading about it, but here are the basics.
Most modern belly boats have the tube meeting at an apex behind the angler, so they are designed to move with you facing the other way, as when you row a boat.
Once you’ve kicked off into deeper water, you’re striving for a gentle, up-and-down kicking motion with alternate legs. You’re bending your leg at the knee: each leg starts with the foot underneath you – toes pointing downwards – and the lower leg at a 45-degree angle to the upper leg.
The leg kicks forwards and upwards until the angle between the lower and upper legs is about 150 degrees, then returns to its starting point, as the other leg kicks upwards.
Pace yourself (you have a long day ahead) don’t bend your ankle and avoid breaking the surface with your feet: the splashing will frighten fish away.
To turn right, the paddling arc is a shorter stroke. With both lower legs at ninety degrees to the upper leg and toes pointing straight down, jab forward a short way with the right leg and simultaneously back with the left and repeat until you’ve turned as far as you need to.
To turn left simply reverse the process. Forward with the left leg, back with the right.
If you prefer not to paddle all day: there's also belly boats available that have an electric motor and a propeller.
One of the most important conversations you’ll have with your tackle dealer when you start belly boating won’t have anything to do with fishing gear.
It’ll be about the type of fins that you use. Young, strong people can overcome a poor choice of fins but everyone else has to get it right.
As for the belly boat itself, this is a sector of the gear market where you get what you pay for, so don’t cut corners.
Ask about a repair kit and also see if there’s a crotch strap to stop you from sliding down the seat should a sudden wind tip the belly boat forward. While the retaining bar will stop you from falling out, repeatedly pushing yourself fully back into the seat can get tiring.
And check how portable the belly boat will be when inflated (you’ll need to buy a hand pump for that job, incidentally). Being able to carry it comfortably on your back from your car to the water’s edge or from one part of the lake to another is essential.
You’d think casting would cause a belly boat to move around a lot but as long as any breeze is behind you, you don’t false cast excessively, and you use your fins to steady the craft, you should be able to hold your position.
Keep things that are sticking out behind you (landing net, spare rod) on the opposite side of the belly boat from your casting arm, to minimize the risk of tangles.
How to work your fins once you hook a fish is something only experience can teach you but remember to keep looking around you as well as at the end of your line while you play the fish so that you always know where you are on the water. And be aware that at some point, you’re going to have an experience many anglers never know: playing a fish that’s directly beneath you…
Belly boating is the most immersive fly fishing experience you’ll have. You’re at one with your environment and the whole lake is yours. Stay safe, and tight lines!
Our article about fly fishing from a kayak.
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