Putting “U” in the Best Fishing Float Tube

It’s rare, but every now and again you run across a design that is so well executed that it restores your faith in mankind’s ability to actually deliver a product that not only satisfies a need, but actually excels at every aspect of it. The Creek Company’s U-Boat is such a design and whomever is responsible for it should be extremely proud of their achievement.

If you are wondering why you’d even want a fishing float tube, take a few minutes to watch the “Confessions of a Float Tube Fly Fisherman” video. It explains my heavily biased opinion of why there is no better fishing platform for fly fishing the Texas Hill country rivers.

Since I started fishing out of my old $40 used Caddis float tube a year ago, my opinion of float tubes for fly fishing has continually risen. Even after getting an extremely nice kayak, all of my best days fly fishing on the rivers were from a float tube. However there were a lot of things about the Caddis design that I disliked so it became an ongoing research project to find a replacement. The problem was that any of the floats that got my interest were really expensive, too much so to justify that kind of money just for an upgrade.

Recently stupidity, the Texas heat and I guess fate intervened. You see, when you drop an inflated float into cool water it also cools the air inside the tube. The greater the difference between air and water temperature, the more pressure the float loses. The smart thing to do is to just accept that process and just give it a few more pumps to bring the pressure back up.

Or you can do what I did.

Somehow my brain had decided it was more efficient (i.e. lazy) to slightly over inflate the tube initially then toss it in the water where it would then normalize. My confidence in this technique had been bolstered by using it successfully for a few times. But that false confidence was just part of the setup for the punchline. The Caddis died a horrible death on its final trip when I was too slow to move it into the cool water while the air temperature were rising quickly. At least she went out with a bang instead of a whimper.

<imagine a picture of a brutally herniated float here, I guess I was too much in shock at the time to photograph it>

Now I was in immediate need of a replacement, not just the luxury of an upgrade! So that night I poured over my research folders in my browser that I’d bookmarked over the last year. I wanted something lightweight with a few features that were important to me but the prices of anything that came close to what I was looking for were borderline stupid.

I’d resigned myself to watching Craigslist for another used float when 10 pages back on a Google search for “lightweight float tubes” led me to a forum comment about the Creek Company U-Boat. I vaguely knew about the float model but had the impression from it being called “The Original” U-Boat that it was an old design and wouldn’t have the features of the newest models. However being light was important to me so I started looking at it in earnest.

Here is all I needed to know to place my order right then and there; it only weighed 7lbs and it was on sale at the time for $99. I actually ordered 2 of them.

When the boxes arrived, I tore one open inflated it and began to marvel at design features I had not expected or understood when I had ordered it. Here is a breakdown of what I discovered:

1. It really is a “U” design. Every other float I’ve looked at uses a cross bar to separate the float in front of your seat. Thats no big deal while you are floating a lake or pond but its a huge pain in the butt if you are getting in and out of the float all day like the Hill Country rivers require. The U-Boat uses tension straps that tighten at the back of the float to keep the ends of the float separated without a crossbar. So you can hop in and out quickly with no real effort. This single feature is a monumental advantage over any other make/model for use on the local rivers. I like this feature so much that I don’t even bother attaching the stripping apron that comes with it.

2. Not only is it really light at 7lbs, but it comes with shoulder straps. That’s right, when you get to an area of river that is so shallow you just need to get past it, you can just slip the U-Boat on like a backpack. The straps are removable but I’ve just left them on and they haven’t remotely snagged on anything yet while floating.

3. The float has great storage options. I don’t just mean it has a lot of storage, I mean the way the pockets are designed is really well thought out. Most floats provide right and left side pockets that are directly under where your arms rest. So you are constantly crushing the soft stuff or feeling the pointy bits of anything hard. The U-Boat has pushed the side pockets back so that your elbows land onto the tube just in front of them, leaving the contents (and your forearms) unmolested.

In addition there is a huge pocket on top the backrest. To be honest, when I first saw this on their website, all I could think about was that it’s be a huge wind sail. However, once I got a chance to see it in person I realized that the pouch would only add to the wind cross section if I put something in it. In effect, all it did was give me an option to carry more at the cost of a high profile instead of giving me no option at all had they not included it. This big pocket has ended up getting used pretty consistently for storing my hand pump. Its really nice knowing I have it with me now.

4. For the price, I wasn’t expecting the attention to quality in the details. Not only does it use a Boston valve on the main bladder like a much more expensive float would, but the valve is heavily reinforce on the bladder and its accessed through a covered pouch in the side pocket. Normally I think of the main valve assembly as the most probable trouble spot on the whole float, not here. That’s just an example however, the whole float is rife with attention to detail including mounting points everywhere, high quality zippers and so on.

So far the only fault I’ve found with the U-Boat is a very minor one. Since I don’t use the stripping apron, the velcro patches at my elbows are exposed and tend to be a bit uncomfortable. This seem like an easy fix for me as I can just make a couple of little pads to stick there.

Seriously, that is the only thing I could think of I would change.