Get Out There | 10 Rafting Equipment
Investing in a raft. The cost of frame, oars, and raft for professional and private whitewater outfitting.
How to spend 30K at Sotar and NRS.
Billy Newman Robert Biscarret
Get Out There | 10 Rafting Equipment
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Get-out-there-10-Outfitting-Raft-Equipment_otter.ai
Hello, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. And I’m here today with Robert Vickery. Robert, how are you doing? Hey, doing well, Billy, how you doing? Doing good, man. Thanks a lot for doing Episode 10 of the podcast. It’s pretty cool. Yeah, no, I’m excited, man. What is it? What episode is it? Episode 10. Now, Episode 10. Yeah, moving into double-digit. So sets. That’s a big. That’s our first milestone. It’s great, man. That’s right. But But yeah, definitely. Daddy at the beginning, it’ll be cool. I think it’d be cool to see like, what what we kind of build on or like how the show kind of grows or evolves over the next few months as we put it together a little bit more.
Yeah. Interesting. I like you know, the more we do it, the more it evolves. And I am kind of curious, these things. Like when you do stuff like this, whether it’s any type of project, when you work with somebody, it always evolves in some different way that reflects personalities. And it’s always fun.
Yeah, I want to grow it a bit. And I want to try and make it like a little bit unique or, you know, just so it’s kind of kind of interesting to us at least. But I like it being honest. And being about like some of the cool stuff that we remember about. About our trips in the outdoor stuff that we’ve done. We need Intro music. Oh, yeah. No, I want to I want to work on our sound design.
Yeah. And again, just like Slayer.
Oh, yeah. That’s, that’s the the grand outdoors sound. It’s exactly what nature sounds like. A babbling brook? Sounds like Yeah. I was thinking about it. This week, I wanted to talk to you about some of the raft experience that you’d had. Yeah, on the road river, and probably how to apply a lot of that rafting experience outside of that to just other rivers and other experiences more more in general about like the equipment use of rafting and of doing like, well probably do a multi-day trips, but I was also thinking about people who are interested in doing like smaller trips. And you you, you tell me, I was thinking about it in this way of sort of like three different categories of if you were going to be like a like a bigger trip, like what you would think about for like setting up a raft chip for for like a guide company or an outfitter, what you’re looking at there as a guide, or maybe like what you did to rig a raft and have it set up and like what kind of equipment that was or probably what kind of expands to or what kind of investment it is to get into that level a raft and then maybe like what it’s like for someone that was going to set up a private trip. And we’re trying to figure out the difference between like the the public commercial side of rafting. Yeah, what it would be like for a hobbyist like for what you did, picking up your your first draft and trailer and frame. I want to think about that a little bit. And then there’s also kind of the other end to have, we use what you and I used to be of people that would like pick up a day rental, or pick up, like, you know, whatever smaller thing that they had, and there’s kind of that like day trips section of it, too. So we’re going to talk about those three levels of kind of getting ready or, or what’s involved equipment-wise. For doing.
Yeah, so that’s, that’s, those are good topics. I like that. Um, yeah, there’s there’s a few different levels of it. And I guess it all comes, like how serious you are about it, how much you love being on the water. And, you know, when it comes down to it, everybody, for the most part, enjoys being on the water when it’s, you know, a hot summer day or something. But it’s it’s constantly it’s like anything you do. Oh, yeah, everything’s good. Any hobby? Yeah, hobbies, man.
It seems like the minimum cost for a hobby is about $1,000. So it seems like I remember them, but there’s different tiers to it. Because there’s $1,000 hobbies, there’s $10,000 hobbies, there’s like 50 that, like if you want to be a racecar driver?
Well, let’s see. I think that’s the difference between a hobby and a lifestyle, though, I think that’s when your hobby becomes part of your lifestyle. I so, so perfect example is, is I’m in like that $10,000 obvious thing now, but when you’re voting, but it’s also a huge part of my life. And I you know, I use it for my work as well as my as well as my pleasure. So yeah,
I mean that I think that’s where really a lot of adults end up taking their hobbies eventually, to a place where it’s, it’s pretty serious. It’s like a pretty serious component of their lifestyle. Okay, interesting. That is, but yeah, I definitely believe that that your investments probably pushed up to the $10,000 range. Amanda said about like a lot of the photography stuff that I’ve gotten. We’ve pulled up a bunch of this stuff, and we’ve been laying it out. And yeah, investments like way up above that range of sound. But you imagine like early on when we were getting into guitars in high school. Yeah, like if you get the half stack and a guitar, you kind of look into like the 1000 dollar range. If you’re looking at like a season pass, and like a new snowboard, that’s like $1,000 or so like every every hobby was like 1000 like 1000 bucks. There’s kind of like a market price point around that, that amount. That’s funny. I’ve never really looked at it, though. Right is weird. Yeah, there’s just yeah, there’s invisible numbers out there that seem to be the, the limits of what will pay but I paid for it every time it seems like
so, ya know, so I guess I’ll start with like, you know, your basic basic hobbyist that just want us
with the family or whatever, just get on the water for a day. Your best bet for something like that. Especially if you don’t have any experience with the water, you’re going to get on to his rentals. You can do like guided day tours, which you know, everything’s provided you guys are just out on the water doing your thing. You can get into those for about 100 bucks. I’ve done a few of those at a good time. Yeah, they’re they’re pretty fun. Um, I mean, most of the time you’re gonna get a high school kid that probably from the area on their summer vacation getting ready to go to college or whatever but they’re usually from the area fairly knowledgeable about the about the river they’re running and and for the most part you can have a good time everybody’s safe and you know all the all the work and labor-intensive ends are taken care of. So if you’re not a big time water enthusiast, I would say that would be the best way to go check it out. But kind of stepping up from there you know being from the area you get a lot of people that you know own boats in the area
yeah that’s what I was thinking about was all those have their own boats set up so that they would go down and you know, they had hardly really any any professional setup but just I mean like well we took down hundreds or you know, dozens of times during the handful of summers was just real simple stuff that we pulled from biomart
Yeah, exactly. And that’s that’s the way you get involved in it and stuff and get a you find out that you when you go to price wraps and stuff you’re looking at you know, four to $5,000 just for you know an intro introduction level wrap I was looking at that
RAM and ores it looked pretty excited I wanted to talk about like the big time RAF prices and if you guys but yeah, I was really I was interested in that. I was surprised but I remember like the cheap like seven or sevi war tahini kayak that we’d inflated and tacos on nine bucks, man. There we go. that got us through June. At least though. We’re we’re going down yeah, it was great. I love doing that was like after work or something and we cruise down to down to like the Hells Canyon, put in went to go lease I think one time. It was great. It was cool.
Yeah, no, a ton of fun. Get serious about doing that you really enjoy doing that in your area where you can access this all the time. That’s when you start getting into that like, I don’t know, I’m gonna just call it the middle ground and say that that $5,000 Yes, problem. floors and stuff. is, um, you know, you want to bring your friends and stuff feels good about getting in a kayak. ruins a ton of fun. And you just can’t pack enough beer. So all these kind of accumulate into, you know, stepping up your your water game and getting a little bit more involved.
Yeah, I think I think having a raft having a good rap. Well, what would you recommend for the Rogue River? So there’s like, Well, probably like above a 10 foot draft. I’m sorry, I lost connection. Oh, yes. you when you were on the road, maybe even on like the day trip section. Are you? Are you running like a 16 foot boat or an 18 foot boat?
Yeah, yeah. Typically, anything we do on the road is going to be 16 foot boats. We’re running rubber rafts for rafting, obviously. For the little inflatable kayaks or I cases they’re called right. So yeah, I mean, for that section, if it’s just like you and your wife and the dog or something like for somebody that’s not a serious multi day rafter, I would suggest getting into like a 14 foot boat. A 14 foot boat is perfect. You can put the cooler in there. Yeah, you can put two to three people in there and have a great day. The only problem with that is if you start getting into multi day trips, the amount of gear you start bringing adds up really, really quick, and a lot of times you can’t accommodate your equipment. The people in the boat.
Yeah, okay. Yeah. Was that about the size of a town? There’s dad’s boat that we’d see go down on the river. Yeah, yeah. Did you say Tyler? Yeah, Tyler’s dad. Yeah, I was wondering if that was about the size of his boat setup. I thinking about him and yeah, yeah, okay.
Okay. He’s got like a late 80s. So tar wrap. That thing’s awesome. It’s like a second collectible man. That thing’s one of the originals. Yeah, but he had a he had a self bailing floor put into it. Then all that stuff, but yeah, that’s that’s like the perfect size for like those weekend trips that you just want to do. Right? You know, on a Saturday, it’s 100 degrees. I was good at the river. That’s perfect.
That sounds really cool. Yeah, it seems to be the best setup for it. And so what was what was the size of raft that you got? Like, was it two years ago that you bought your own raft?
I got a 16 foot, just because the 14 ended up being too small for because that’s typically what I do, or the multi day trips. And that’s, that’s the problem you end up with a lot of times as you just can’t fit your gear in a 14 foot boat. Okay, and still put two people in there. And that’s why you just was 16 Yeah, it’s just a little more breathing room. I just think it’s more comfortable. Far, far better experience. I had a great time. I had a good experience and you about I think, yeah, works really well. So funny. Oh, good.
Oh, I was gonna ask about, about like, the lifespan of boats are about like maintenance and about, like how old your boat is? How long you expect to keep a raft on the river.
Man, you can keep it okay. It’s like any good equipment you buy for any form of outdoor recreation. It’s all in how you take care of it. Um, I, you know, everybody wants to get a boat. And I really kind of downplay it for a lot of people unless they’re serious about maintenance, and upkeep and storage and things like that. It’s, there’s a lot that goes into it. You know, if you’re going to store it over the winter, try not to roll it keep it inflated. Those rolls become creases, and then become weak.
I’ve seen PVC. Yeah, I’ve seen where it becomes weak. I’ve had I’ve had a dry bag that I put in the closet, you know, six or seven years old. But when I pull it out, yeah, where it increased and it’s sad. It got brittle and it cracked. They’re just as bad as weird. Yeah, weird to see it. But. But it’s interesting, though, like when it’s deflated. That’s when that’s when you get creases. And that’s when you get the extreme amount of weathering.
Yeah, well, that’s not weathering. I mean, you got to figure these things out in the sun all the time. Another thing you got to do is they make a boat conditioner, and it’s called like 303, I think, but it’s like that terrible band. Hey, remember those guys? Of course. Yeah.
There’s I get but you you put it on is a polypropylene or what was it? With Cheerio that those that the wraps are made out of
the older rafts, if it’s a good raft is made out of Hypalon hype. Yeah, and then the newer rafts are PVC. Really? Okay. Yeah. So But anyway, they make this boat conditioner what it does. It’s kind of like sunscreen for your boat, basically. Okay, and just prolongs the life by a lot of years. And, sure. It’s kind of the, the end of the season gig before you before you break everything down.
Yeah. Okay. And the plan is that during the cold season, you keep it inflated, and you just have it stacked up in a dry area to store it.
That’s That’s the idea. If you’re gonna be serious about having a boat, I suggest investing in kind of somewhere to keep it, I suppose. I don’t know. If you’re any serious boater? What was that?
Oh, I was just gonna say if you would invest in somebody to keep it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You got to figure you’re gonna have a frame you’re gonna have probably two maybe three sets of oars. You know, life jackets, Cam straps. Just abundance of things. And yeah, okay, for for just anybody with a single car garage. That’s
a lot of stuff to store. Oh, yeah, it’s a ton of stuff to try and put together on the ones Yeah.
So then you’re rolling your boat and things like that. So if you can, the best way to take care of plated over the winter.
That’s kind of a good idea to try and keep it inflated during the cold season or like, wow, get brittle. You know, I had some neighbors that I think it had like a big rubber raft that they put up out in the field. And I just let it sit there for like winter and summer and then winter and summer deflated. And you know, like whatever happens with the earth and the grass of how you know do you know like when you pull up stuff and there’s like all the like little running audience and
this like kind of yeah also theme yeah it’s crazy yeah
and it was just crazy to see like this really nice Raph just go to like nothing and just kind of be just become compost over over 24 months or something. That’s pretty crazy. I’m upset with those people I know. Well, okay, so I was wanting to ask you about this where do you go about sourcing all the other materials? So there’s the raft itself that you can get, but then there’s the frame and then like everything else like you would you go through it like a lot of the Outfitters they buy a lot of their stuff from like, NRS. Yeah. And then they, at least in Southern Oregon, right, everybody’s pretty pretty well hooked on sotah rafs. Uh-huh. Now is that like, pretty common? West Coast wide or so? Tara? Like a smaller company? No, no. So Tara is known worldwide. That’s what I thought and seen. And everybody likes some time deal. Yeah, hit set a time but they’re in Maryland, right?
Yeah, they’re right out of Merlin, Oregon. That’s outrageous. That they say so tar stands for? Well, a bunch of different people argue that A stands for different things. But what so tar is an acronym for is a state of the art rafts. And okay, so they do they produce rafts, and they do a lot of dry boxes and camping cookware and there. And then they’re also just kind of a retailer for for NRS stuff. Also, I’ve noticed that before in the past, yes. out of there stuff in there. Yeah, you can go on there and buy your life jacket and tacos, or tivos is the way to go. Man. But yeah. If you’re like me, man, okay, so. So your like little $5,000 raft can easily turn into a $20,000 raft if you’re buying everything new.
Oh, really? Yeah. You know, from NRS. Or so far? Well, yeah. This So type page earlier. And I saw it listed. I wrote it down. It was for an 18 foot RAF, one of those purple ones. Oh, 70 $800.
And that’s just the raft. Just through after? Yep. That’s not the friend. That’s crazy. Nobody runs steel frames anymore. Unless you acquired it somehow or built it yourself. Oh, everything’s aluminum now. Yeah. And that’s all powder coated. For a frame, you’re probably looking. Honestly. 2500 for a good frame. Really? Wow. Yeah. And then your oarlocks are, you know, 60 bucks apiece. Because they don’t come as a pair. You buy him separate? Well, then you start getting into orders. You’re probably looking at 400 bucks for a nice set of orders. Yeah, I’d say that. That’s kind of on the low end to like, Yeah, I got mine. Yes, order makes great. Great orders. Is that Yeah, I
remember seeing those at a few of the places. And I remember like, just like the blade was just an insane amount of money.
Yeah, well, so a blade itself is like 120 550 bucks. Wow, retail. And then you start getting into your composite shafts and stuff like that. And yeah, man, it becomes really expensive. I got my set of nine and a half footers for I want to say 495. And I got like, because they had been used once on a river trip. So they kind of had some scratches on the blades. And because I was an outfitter, I got like, you know, 30% knocked off. So I mean that. Yeah, so I got a screaming deal. And,
and it’s still, it’s still fine. Yeah. Well, so I wanted to ask you that too. How do people kind of find their way into to doing rafting or doing stuff on the river. I mean, for us, like we kind of grew up in Southern Oregon. And even still, I wouldn’t say I’m an avid rafter I’d gone like the times that we did, or I’d done like small-time rentals, but like, it’s the people that like yourself, like worked as a guide for a while and then they do something else. And then they come back to the river. They want to do more outfitting or, you
know, it’s it’s a variety of different things that happens. You know, some people you know, they do the guiding thing for a little bit, they get involved somehow and then they, you know, come back to it or they grew up with somebody that had a boat, maybe their dad had a boat with their kid, they got you some time in on the sticks. It’s like, it’s like anything, though, that you pursue, you always find a way. You know, when I started playing guitar, you just start associating with the people that are doing what you want to do. And so you start as a guitar player, you start looking for other guitar players and you pick their brains and seek answers and help
Yeah, well, yeah, I was yes about that. Because I mean, I know I’d spent like, a couple summers down there on the Rogue River too. And you’d watch how those chips go by. But I was always wondering, like, Where are these people getting their expertise to do this, I mean, it’s kind of like a technical level of skill to operate, especially like the lower road, or some of these, these private trips that would come through and they get the shuttle to, like, go to the other side, and they like rent out. They ran out all their equipment from from the outfitter that I worked at, and then they’d go down, but you just think like, what is this guy’s past? Like, how did this guy jump into it? Was he like, 20? When he got into rafting was he 30 or something like is just something he did when he’s a kid started a long time ago that was kind of passed down by generations, like what you’re talking about? It seems like it almost has to be connected a little bit like that. Maybe like hunting, like what we talked about a few episodes back, but it seems like recreational activity seems like you have to be sort of brought into it a little bit when you’re younger. at a stage like,
Ah, you know, I, I would argue I mean, oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I would I mean, those I mean, I would say majority of people probably do start that way. But I, I mean, I’m a perfect example of it. I had, I had never rode a boat until I started guiding. So it was just, it was something I wanted to do. Yeah, but you’re 23. Right. or joy, you know, but but i i don’t understand. Definitely. Yeah. But I mean, but it’s, you know, you can also be 50 and just say, you know, make a friend with a boat and just say, hey, teach me the way. Yeah, yeah.
I bet there’s a lot of rivers that you could grow, rub pretty well. But I was always surprised just like the magnet like the the number of people that would come through that were travellish mother as it comes through for their summer vacations. And they’d like set up and book a trip, like a private trip for themselves to go to the lower road or for themselves to spend a couple days on the on the river. That was kind of cool. It was interesting. It seems like it’d be fun to jump out like some other part of the country. Have you thought about that? Robert, like other rivers and other parts of the country, maybe up and down the West Coast? That’d be cool. I’d always wondered about that.
Yeah, so a lot of there’s a variety of good rivers you could go to. There’s the the Umpqua which is out of Roseburg. So still kind of Southern Oregon area. Yeah. Okay. That’s, that’s got a couple technical runs on it. And you know, you’d want a smaller boat for that. But you can also cruise up to the john day. There’s the Hawaii there. And this is just an Oregon. Yeah.
Well, what are the sign after rivers? Alright, it seems like, Robert, you should correct me because you’ve had some experience some years down on the Rogue River when I was in the office. And when I was around, like the section doing support stuff for the river chips, like I was for a few years working as a photographer, you’d, you’d seen you talk to people, and they were kind of seeking out the Rogue River is like a destination outside of like, General tourism stuff. And it seemed like that was kind of the case without they’re booking trips, with larger groups for the downriver trips, for a few days, or for the private ships that would go out to the lodges. And yeah, so I was wondering, like, well, like maybe in a list of priority, like where does a Rogue River rank? as like a destination number for people to go to?
surprisingly high? It seems like it would be Yeah, so it’s, it’s a world class River. It may not seem like it just because we brought up near it, but it really is. So it’s I mean, it starts at the crater lake, you’ve got the gourd. You’ve got the lower road that everybody knows about. And then also it was one of the eight rivers instilled in the the national rivers act where they were the protected zone where they put it into Wild and Scenic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So when they did the protection act on on, I forget what the other ones are. But is that was one of the eight. No, no, it was. Wow. So they did eight of them in the row was one of them. Oh, wow. So that was a part of it. It’s got cinematic history. Sure. You know, john Wayne films, river wild, you know, few other TV shows and stuff. In a lot of those things, it’s kind of made a name for itself over the years. And then also, it was I mean, historically, it’s where the where the Indian Wars, the 1850s were going on. It has a rich mining history. I mean, so the history is rich.
Yeah. It’s definitely there’s a lot of mining history back there. A lot of Indian history back there that I’d heard about. Yeah. And it seems like over probably the last 1520 years, seems like the tourism part of sport rafting. And like sport tourism through that areas kind of increase a little bit. I don’t know if the numbers reflected in the same way, but it seems like in general, the whole, like the national trend of people going to Rei seems up. Does that make sense? A little bit?
Yeah, no, I absolutely. I think a lot of that is just this, this younger generation. You know, are you look at our parents generation, the baby boomers, and they were, you know, really career-oriented and things like that. Sure. And to be fair, they set our generation up pretty decent, as far as having enough free time to go recreate a little more frequently than they were able to. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s where I think a lot of that comes from, and as a result, we’ve just seen a lot more people recreating in different ways in shopping at places like Rei and things like that.
Yeah, I’ve seen it a lot to it seems like the promotion of the level lifestyle, the recreational lifestyles, has increased a lot in the last like five years in the last 10 years, it seems like it’s up, you know, from from 2005 to 2010 to 2015 2017. Now, like what it is, stress? It seems like it’s kind of ramping ramping up by quite a bit. Maybe that’s just been me and my involvement. No, I think. Well, yeah, it definitely doesn’t mean you see, like, like the last handful of years. So the the angle of marketing that Oregon is taken as being sort of this Pacific Northwest Wonderland. environment where I think really, that’s just the marketing department of travel Oregon, really trying to push like tourism dates. In the Northwest. It’s kind of interesting.
Absolutely. And a big, big component that was his wine culture kind of blowing up in this area as well. Oh, yeah. The wine culture. Yeah, that’s been a that’s created a huge spark as far as tourism goes, because now everybody’s going Wait, I can go do a legitimate wine tour. And still go whitewater rafting. You know, I don’t have to go to Napa to go do wine. Yeah. You know, I
watched a rash the Russian River down there, man. Yeah, I don’t know what that one is. But Sacramento River? Yeah, but yeah, it’s probably it’s, I’m sure there’s a lot of fun opportunities up here. You know, you should tell me, Robert, I remember cuz you probably interacted with more guests than I ever did. But when I was interacting with guests, it was kind of interesting to see the cycles throughout the summertime. Because you would see a lot of people coming in from just different areas, like from Illinois, and they’d be on a six week vacation where they started in Southern California. And they were on their way up north or some reverse of that, where this was just a stop, and a whole number of different things and places that they were going to go to so the day before they were in the red was the day before that they were in San Francisco, you know, and so forth, like a road trip would go. But it was interesting to hear about that. I was wondering if you had heard or had experienced the same kind of thing with the people that were kind of interacting with the river?
Yeah, no, I have a ton of experience with that. I’m sorry, I just said no, I just, I always say, ya know, when I started stuff, and I just catch it, sometimes it makes me laugh.
Anyway, anyway, people coming up, it kind of depends on the type of trip you’re running. So if I’m running a day trip, I’m gonna get a lot of people that are a three week vacation, kids are on summer break, or they’re retired and they got the RV or something like that. That’s where I get a lot of that, you know, the redwoods, the morrow that type of deal. Running the multi day trips, you get people that are a little more serious, like they’ve been planning this for the last year and a half. They saved money, they got everybody together. And then this is their trip. So a lot of times we get those people are flying in for their trip. A lot
of those I’ve ever seen that where it was like for chiropractors and their wives or going on a rafting trip. And it was this it was very well planned out structured. Everybody’s paid in advance, like back in March. It’s interesting. And that was you know, I wanted to get into that with you to a little bit of like, the the shows that you went to, I think what did you say you went to one in Colorado? And then one in Las Vegas? Yeah. Yeah. I was interested in that because that was the that’s like the other side of it. Like where they’re trying to like book some of those chips. In the book. I’m like a year out. Or I remember like the book even like, two years out sometimes.
Oh, yeah. No, we were booking two years out when I was on these trips. Wow.
Yeah, I remember that a road wilderness when I was working with them, you know, they’d have they’d have weekends set up for people already. Yeah, I have a chips for guided chips and they just have that stuff already scheduled out.
Yeah, I mean, if you’re if you’re waiting until summertime to try to book a rafting trip. It’s just it’s probably not gonna happen unless there’s a cancellation, but At that point, you’re kind of at the mercy of the dates available. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. It seems like everyone had had their their things already sorted out. And just everybody had their equipment set up. Everybody had their, their bookings, their flights. All that was well, well made in advance of that, especially for travelers, you know, especially for that. But first local people, it seems like it’s a lot easier. Yeah, it’s been cool. But so you were talking about? Well, I was just trying to figure out about, like, the NRS. equipment, the cost, you were saying that’s what lives up to like, the $20,000 range pretty quickly, like when you’re equipping about, and it was, yeah, interested in that, like, just different things you’d seen or different ideas you had when you were trying to price out and set up your own? Like you. you purchased us, right?
Yeah, so that’s, that’s the way to do it, in my opinion, is, is understand the equipment, make sure you’re not getting hustled by somebody. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, just just scope around man. Craigslist is such a helpful tool, like it really has, you’re serious about buying something. It’s just look every single day, you know, when you get home from work, just scan, like, you know, every day, I would just type in rafts and I that page, phone all the time, and it’s just, you know, on my lunch break, click through the rest, and eventually, something’s gonna pop up. I got my whole I got my raft just from association of the company, there was a raft that they came came upon. And then we’re getting rid of and I just happened to Yeah. And I spent $600 on it, rather than, you know, 6000 then but then I found I found my nice aluminum frame which is really a great frame. I found that on Craigslist for 100 I mean, it took it took like an hour of modifying and it’s not like I’m I’m an experienced you know, I yeah. Run that by one more time. It was how much for the frame. Yeah, it was 150 bucks. I mean, super minimal customization, when I got home
to get it to fit the way I wanted it to and it’s been a great frame, and I’ll keep that frame forever. That’s really cool. It seems like a great opportunity to get one for for a lower cost.
Yeah, and that’s the thing too is it just it all depends on how serious you are if you have the money and you want the Ferrari of the water you want to just like be decked outlook good just scooped out and ditching that and you know go buy new and do all that stuff. But if you just want to get on the water and not break bank look used
Yeah, I think they used to have sounds great. So what would you say to set up for fishing a little bit more? like would you still go with a raft?
Yeah, it’s funny you say that. It’s kind of a point of debate between fishermen and rafters. Anybody that’s been fishing for a long time and Roza drift boat will typically argue that you need to have a drift boat for fishing for practical reasons and just for tradition as well. There’s kind of a pride factor that comes with growing the drift boat it that just kind of encompasses the culture of fishing
I absolutely see that I think that makes a lot of sense again Yeah. Yeah. from seeing the other drift boat like fisherman and drift boat guides that have moved through the river it’s interesting to watch what they’re able to do and I can see where it’s a point of pride
it’s it’s in you know the practicality level of it is you can hold a drift boat in a spot while people fish a lot longer shoot in a raft a lot less surface area for drag
right a lot less work a lot less drag a lot less
but then also that the fishing and tends to be more Zen and kind of peaceful and one with the river nature. I was thinking it was a more intense experience. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It kind of provides a more intimate experience if if you can understand that I guess. But yeah, and then also I mean it with a raft you got tissue hooks and knives and things like that going on. You start thinking about the logistics of that. Yeah, just not really a great idea.
Yeah, I understand that, but when you guys do, what do you guys do any fishing off the off the back of the raft in the summertime when you’re fishing with trips or with groups? Or is that like just for the fishing trips?
Um, you know, we we typically will let people bring fishing rods and stuff, but we’ll let them fish out at Camp rather than the boats. Typically, there’s, you know, five other people in the boat with them. Right? So somebody getting hooked or
to drop them back to throw a cast and exactly Tommy right in the face. Yeah. Well, Trump Yeah, I run a rod off the back of my boat. Well,
I remember that when were Yeah, he had. He were kind of trolling for. Yeah, for some bites, which is a good time. It’s fine.
I’m in the I’m in the gear boat. So I kind of make my own. Make your own rules back then. Exactly. Exactly. unless anybody that I work with isn’t this and that I follow totally, by the rule, follow all the rules out there. That’s what I do on
the high seas of the Rogue River. No, it’s cool is a cool experience. You know, I really appreciate the time that I had done down on the river, like working on a river, if anybody else has had that type of that type of experience. And being a guide or being like support. I had a really cool time. Well, I think support like you were talking about like chucking rafts up onto a trailer, that job would suck. But my job was pretty cake. It was just like, it was just photos, I just drive down in the morning. And like, you’d watch everybody get in, you photograph them in one spot, then you drive down ahead of them, you wait. And then you kind of like timeout and you could you could run stuff by clockwork really like of when people were going to go by when you could get photographed. But yeah, I would use interesting you just get so used to that rhythm of what people are doing or like what the little time is for for people moving down the river. And is interesting getting used to that for ourselves too. Like when when you and I were like our bigger group would go on raft trips. And we just ran a raft and the days we weren’t working, pick up and then put in from hogs Creek, take a lease as to how you can kind of get to that point, like what you did, I’m sure after what, like a week or something, you know, and probably to every other part of the lower road to where you get kind of well-paced on that day of work on the river. So that was a cool part of
Well, that’s that’s kind of like the art of it. So I mean, our job right is to to, to keep a pace and a schedule, but still make it feel like you’re on vacation show. Yeah, the idea is like, we still need to be at these places at these times. But that’s kind of the fun in difficult balance. And not everybody can do that. You know, of keeping people on schedule without rushing them or stressing them out and still giving them a good time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
I can see that a lot. I know it’s a specific personality type that seems to be pulled in to work as a guide, or you know, work in that kind of a field I don’t know if you’ve noticed that too. It’s like the the personality types of people that self select to become guide Oh, or to work at downriver industry.
It’s, it’s so funny. Yeah, it’s everybody’s got pretty much the same. The same personality deep down, and it’s not all it’s not always as chipper and fun as we make you believe. Yeah, I’ve seen there’s also the salty end.
Yeah, there’s a salty end of that. Sometimes. I remember hanging out with a few of those guys after hours after work. And they get down with a thing and we’d go, you know, just burn down. Merlin. There’s like one bar is that the Rome ours? Have you been down there? like yeah, I’ve never been in Rome. ours. Oh my gosh, I go to ball deenis Ah, but the highlight for Merlin out there. That’s it, man. Yeah, yeah, those guys can be troublemakers though. It turns out, but it’s fun to their their lively group is kind of cool.
Oh, man, I love hanging out with those guys. It’s if anybody gets you the way you want to be understood. It’s definitely river guides for me anyway.
I’ve had a good time with it, man. It’s cool. Yeah, it’s It was a fun time being down there. And I was I had a great time. I mean, it’s just there’s no cooler place to work, right? Or till I get to hang out for a while just being down on the river. It’s what I appreciated the most. It was fun. I remember working like every single day of August and like almost every single day of July. It was just like super packed and then right up till Labor Day. And boom, it’s done. It was weird at that part of the season work. At least my part of it right of doing photos doing it in that section. But yeah, as soon as school starts, remember, like, died off completely for that upper section.
Yeah. And it does that in the in the canyon, too. You’re working. And it’s crazy because you’re working back to back to back to back trips all summer long from the springtime. And it seems like as soon as Memorial Day hits, you’re just like out of a job. Yeah, you know, it was just like, everything just stopped. Go back to your life. No, no, it’s it’s so sudden that you don’t even it takes you a while to adjust that of that.
It was really tough. Well, the first year it was great because I was a college student. I think the first two years I was a college student. So it was like the summer job. I’d come home from college. And then I’d work on the river. doing that, like every day of the summer break and then right you know, as soon as it would stop, that’s right at the time I needed to move back up and started stuff for that next year. And so that worked out really well and then the last bit of it is when is when I did stuff to go on those trips, right? Like, when I finished up college, I worked like all the time that summer to save up money. And then as soon as that stopped, I took off. And and I went into work, or like I went into working on those long like 50 day road trips that I did wear like a went down river or not downriver, but I went out to like, well, Robin just dropped off the line there. I should just notice sorry for being a little distracted for a second. But to wrap up, I guess everything we were talking about. What I did is we finished up a ton of the photography that we’re doing on the Rogue River, like supporting all those day trips those downriver chips. And then I took all that money that I saved up to do those long road trips of camping and traveling and backpacking and stuff in the fall. And that’s after I finished up college, which was a super awesome ability to afford that, like during that year of your life when you’re flexible, and you get to do that kind of stuff. It was super fun. I was really glad that I got to do it during that time. But shoot, it’s too bad. Robert. Robert, wish he was here? I’m sure he does. He just dropped off the line a second ago. And he didn’t, didn’t pick up back when we tried to Skype him back. One of the things about doing little Skype things. Maybe I should call them or you know, try? You guys give me dial in. Robert, are you there? No, no pickup. I’m just kind of teasing them. But I guess I’ll wrap up everything on the podcast. And I’m sure Robert wishes that he was here to announce that we have a Facebook page that I think we’re putting together. That’s what he talked about Episode 10. Right. So we had that figured out. But we have a little bit of a Facebook page going on. I think Robert is going to be working on that. I’ll try and post a link to that sometime soon. But outside of that, we have everything at the Billy Newman photo calm. And I think it’s at the podcast section of that page. And then you go to the get out there section. You can also search for get out there on iTunes, of course. And it seems to come up right away. It’s pretty cool. Having a little podcast and I’ve been looking at the numbers going, it seems like that has grown a little bit. But if anybody has any questions or any interest that they’d want to listen to us talk about, or that we’d have any stories about. I mean, I guess it’s a lot of what the podcast focuses on is just stories that Robert and I have about past experiences doing stuff out in the outdoors. It’s kind of cool stuff. So I won’t talk anymore without Robert I’m sure he wishes he was here. So what I will say is on behalf of Robert beskar at my name is Billy Newman and thank you all very much for listening to this episode. of the get out there podcast.