FishCraft SuperCat Raft

At first glance, FishCraft’s SuperCat tunnel hull raft looks like one sweet fluff-chucking rig, but could it be equally at home coated in roe slime or back-trolling plugs as it is a serving as a platform for fly fishing?

The fine folks at Fish Craft (aka The Riverman Boat Works), say that the raft is part cataraft and part driftboat, combining the best of both worlds. You get the comfort of a hard floor and enclosure of a drifter while also having the forgiving qualities of a raft.

The SuperCat comes in a 15-foot standard model and an 18-foot Big Boy version. I picked the 15 footer for versatility’s sake because I wanted to use it on some smaller waters. The 18 footer is more of a big water outfitter’s gear-hauling machine or for somebody a little more manly than me…

Features

First and foremost, this boat is bulletproof. Made of tough 2200 denier PVC, the boat spots fat 25-inch main tubes that taper down to 16 inches in the bow and stern, which gives you quite a bit of extra room both fore and aft. There’s also a thick 20-inch wide strip of River Track rubber that runs the length of the bottom of each tube for added protection from bogies in the river.

The real slick part of the design, however, is the tunnel hull. The floor sits 14 inches above the water line, so all you have in the water are the two tubes.

The advantage, of course, is a lot less friction from the water along the bottom of the boat which means it rows waaaay better than a soft bottom raft. The SuperCat is also a self-bailer, so the raised floor enables any water you take on to gravity feed right out of the boat in nanoseconds.

The hard floor is another super sweet attribute, giving you the ability to stand up inside the raft with confidence — just as you would in a drift boat.

Layout

While you can configure a SuperCat in several different ways, I opted to go Pimp Daddy with mine and ordered most of the bells and whistles. For client’s comfort, I went with two drift boat style seats up front mounted on a big water-tight aluminum box that has tons of room for gear, lifejackets, lunches, cameras, etc. I also added a 3/4 “Oh Shit” bar up front for the guys to hang on to.

For me, I went with a tractor seat atop another aluminum box. This is the first seat of this style I’ve had and I have to say the little bit of back support goes a long way in keeping me going on a long day — though you do give up the ventilation of a traditional rope style seat. I also had FishCraft add a third seat at the back of the boat, though I have since taken it off.

In addition, I had a drift boat pulley-style anchor system added to the back of the frame and a custom rod holder assembly that slips between the tube and the frame.

Of course, you can keep it simple and have a basic aluminum frame and a bench seat or two put in. The guys at the factory will lay it out any way you want. In fact, the inflatable thwarts came with the boat, so I could even pull the frame off and do some whitewater paddling if I so desired.

River Test

Though I purchased the boat over a year ago, I really haven’t had a chance to use it much until recently, so I’ve held off on the review. After guiding out of it 7 days a week for quite a while now, however, I feel like I’ve finally put her though the paces and found out what the ol’ gal can do.

I guess the first word that comes to mind is “forgiving.” This boat is amazing — it makes easy work out of stuff that used to scare the living crap out of me in a drift boat. Not to say you can’t screw up in one of these boats, but if you keep her straight, you’ve got a good chance of making it through damn near anything.

Instead of sticking to and smashing rocks, you glide and bounce off. And the fact that you can’t sink it is also a huge plus. You can take on enough water to sink a drift boat and it all drains off in an instant. The only downside is the boat’s a bit heavy, and when you get headed down into some fast water, it takes some effort to get her slowed down.

It is also extremely buoyant and stable and makes those creepy boils in big rapids seem a lot less spooky — you know the ones I’m talking about: the kind that try to pull the gunwales of your drifter under. I’ve also intentionally aimed the Super Cat at eddy edges coming off steep riffles to see how the boat handles. In a hard boat, I’ve hit these babies wrong and been spun hard and even taken on water. The Cat, however, takes them easily.

Here’s the SuperCat making short work of a rapid that is a lot more technical in a metal boat that it appears in the video…you can also see why the guys up front need to wear some water-proof clothing in cold weather:

Okay, so it handles big water…but how does it fish?

The simple answer is very, well thank you. Without question, you can easily fish “Sacramento River” style fly anglers, i.e. with a guy up front and one aft, toss indicators out and drift along.

But the boat can do much more. I’ve pulled plugs for salmon and steelhead in some pretty hot water out of the SuperCat and it holds nicely. It doesn’t track as well as a hard boat and is sometimes prone to getting thrown off course because of the way the water hits the sides of the tubes, but it does the job just fine. And, let’s face it, the ability to crash through rough water safely overrides a small lack of handling.

As it turns out, I’ve also found the Cat to be a good side-drifter, making it a steelheader’s dream…

The boat rows well in those dreaded flat-water situations, too, and you can make as much speed “rowing out” as you would in a drifter with the same amount of effort.

Conclusion

Simply, put this is one bad-ass vessel and though they’re not cheap (around $7K the way I’ve got mine set up + trailer), the SuperCat’s worth the money for serious adventure angler types like myself.

The safety, versatility and fishability are it’s main strong points, though you do give up some room when you go with a raft instead of a drift boat. All my clients were a bit skeptical when I told them we’d be fishing in an inflatable rather than the 20-foot Willie drifter or sled that they’ve come accustomed to, but to a man, they all were in love with the SuperCat at the end of the day.

While they have plenty of room up front, I wish I had a little more room…a cooler, fish box, rods and net take up pretty much every last bit of space in the back of the boat. I normally carry a 152-quart cooler that I use as a fish box during salmon season, but could only fit a 120-quart model in the raft. Oh well, it just makes everybody’s fish look bigger…

Though you sit very high in the SuperCat, I think I may switch out the 11-foot oars that came with it to 10 footers. The boat is nimble, but the wide wingspan of the 11-foot sticks made negotiating narrow passages a bit tougher. Composite oars are normally sold with whitewater rafts for their durability, but I’d rather go with more flexible wooden shafts next time, though I really do like the Dynelite blades I have.

The one major drawback to rigging the boat like I did — with all the extras — is it makes it quite heavy. Initially, I figured I’d be able to drop the SuperCat into some sneaky places where I couldn’t launch a drift boat, but that’s not the case. I need to get the trailer pretty dang close to the water to get it on and off. Of course, a more basic frame configuration would make it more portable, but if you want all the comforts of a drifter, its going to cost you in terms of overall weight.

There really aren’t many negatives I can throw at you about the FishCraft SuperCat. Other than the weight, slight performance issues and lack of space, it’s one hell of a rig and the benefits more than outweigh the downsides.

Tagged as: fishcraft, Gear, raft, rafting, riverman boatworks, rivers, supercat, tunnel hull, white water raft