Float Tube Fishing Forum E-Zine Volume 7: Issue 3: | Page 6

Float Tubes

Then to Now

Let's face it if you are reading this it is because you love to fish, your passion courses through your veins.  Because of this we are always looking for new ways to fish or at the very least a way to get off the shore and on to the water. One such way to get off shore and on the water is by float tube and because you are reading these tubes also course through your veins as well.  In the 1940’s on a remote farm pond a man used a truck tire innertube and a plank of plywood as a small personal boat to fish from.  From this swimmingly small unimportant act  we have the birth of the float tube.  It has not been an easy road and to this day there are still many people that don’t know what a float tube is.  Albeit not as many as before but still float tube fishing is an unknown sport and obscure activity.

Flash forward to 2022 the sport of float tube or Belly Boat fishing has grown by leaps and bounds.  When I first began tubing back in the early to mid 90’s float tubes were small and very basic.  In Fact I started in a donut style and quickly moved to a more common style float tube, the U-shape boats.  These tubes were great and did their job they got me off the shore and on to the water, adventure was now part of my fishing world.  From there over the years I have been in many different types of float tubes.    I have enjoyed this activity for many years now and have been witness to some great advancements in our sport.  It is no secret that Europe is light years ahead of us here in the US when it comes to the types of float tubes that are available to us now.   But we are slowly starting to catch up and as the FTFF continues so will the growth of the sport.