Four Fly Fishers Drown in Two Separate Incidents

by Ross Purnell, Editor • August 10, 2011 • 17 comments

On July 28, well-known Livingston, Montana, fly-fishing guide Chester Marion and his close friend Sheldon Goldberg died while rafting the Boulder River with Goldberg’s wife. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, their rubber raft hit a downed cottonwood tree obstructing the river, and the two men were swept away. The two men were wearing waders and no lifejackets. Mrs. Goldberg survived. Marion, 73, guided for Dan Bailey’s fly shop in Livingston for decades.

On July 30, on the Cheakamus River near Whistler, B.C., a man and a woman drowned while on a guided fly fishing trip. According to CBC news reports the woman hooked a fish, lost her balance and was swept away—her male companion jumped in to rescue her. The male’s body was recovered but the woman is still missing and presumed dead. Their identities have not been released.

The Rockies had an unusually high amount of snowpack this year. Rivers that are normally low and wadable in midsummer are still running high from heavy snowmelt as well as summer rain. Personal floatation devices such as Sospenders or William Joseph WST waders can help prevent tragedies in difficult wading situations. Always wear a wading belt—cinched up snugly—and use a wading staff in difficult circumstances.

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  • Steven

    1) What does it matter that these people were wearing waders?

    2) What do you suppose adding a belt would have accomplished.

    Waders do not pull people down. The weight of the water inside waders is the same weight of the water outside. Why would water inside waders cause somebody to sink?

    • Ross Purnell, Editor

      Weight is not the issue. A parachute weighs almost nothing but if you get air pressure in it it's a different matter. You are right that in stillwater (a lake for instance) waders don't make much of a difference. In fast current, they can make a huge difference –especially if they are loose and/or have no wading belt because they act like a parachute, only water pressure is 100X great than air pressure. People don't drown in rivers becuase they are heavy and sink to the bottom. They drown because they are swept away by the current and loose-fitting waders can amplify this effect. Anecdote: A guide recently told me about a drowning on his river. A fly fisher was swept downstream into a logjam. Guide got up on the logjam and had a hold of this guy's arm but due to water pressure could not hoist the guy out against the current. You have a river blowing into your waders you weigh like 1000 pounds.

    • Kody Benjamin

      Adding a wading belt adds a small bit of buoyancy to a person when it comes down to falling into the water. the waders fill up with water, then a person is stuck inside them because of their boots holding their feet in, and because of the bib straps. There are many more things that wading belts could have done. And the fact that they were wearing waders has alot to do with the outcome as well…

  • Bob Bergquist

    Waders can make a huge difference when trying to swim in a swift river. One man nearly drowned on the Madison two years ago when he lost an oar on his pontoon and slipped in while reaching for it. When one of my friends pulled him to shore his waders had turned inside out and were dragging him under.

    The Boulder drownings were due to several mistakes that led to two needless deaths sadly.

  • Steven

    There is no doubt that trying to get out of the water with water in your waders is difficult.

    However, let's think about this:

    You fall and your drifting downstream. There's already water in your waders and it's moving at the same speed you are and the water around you is. It is not making you move faster downstream.

    The difference from the parachute example is that the air is not moving downwards. If air moved downwards, you'd definitely fall as fast – with or without the parachute. This would not be fun.

    As for the anecdote, I can't buy that the waders played a role. Two objects can not occupy the same space. There is water already in the waders, can new water get in? I don't know. If you fill a container to the top with water, and then pour more in, which water is overflowing?

    Water pressure is definitely a b1tch, but I'm not sure the guide would have had an easier time getting the guy out of the water, if he hadn't worn waders. At least not until the water in the waders was above the surface of the river.

    • Ross Purnell, Editor

      Your analogy falls short as soon as you assume you are already have water in your waders, and are already moving the same speed as the current. This is exactly what you want to prevent. You want your waders closed by a belt so you are not being dragged mercilessly by the current. The idea behind a belt is that you slip, you fall down, and then because the belt has your waders closed, the current is less likely to grab you. Then you stand, regain your footing, and are not swept away into deep waters. This has been tested by many experts. It is the reason Simms, Patagonia and others sell belts with the waders. Without a belt you fall, the waders catch the current like a parachute and you are gone in an instant, and you cannot regain your footing.

  • Steven

    Good discussion.

    The water is pushing you immediately, you can't hide. The water pushing into your waders isn't going to go any faster than the current is already pushing you.

    Even if your point held for people who were wading (and I'm not sure it does) it doesn't hold for people who fall off a drift boat. You fall off a boat in the 50 mile riffle, you're being swept away immediately.

    Belts will keep the typical wader who slips a bit drier, but that's about it. Probably more important, belts make your rear-end look not so big. (Nobody looks good in waders)..

    • Ross Purnell, Editor

      You are right, water is pushing you immediately, but the push has less effect if you provide less surface area. Billowing waders create a parachute or sea anchor effect that can render you helpless against the current. I guarantee you that if you & I jumped into 50-mile riffle, and I had a swimsuit and you had waders with no belt, I would more easily find a way to stand up or move to shore. Of this there is no doubt. By adding a belt you become more like the swimmer and less like the parachute or sea anchor. Believe me, I have swum with waders and also taking my share of falls while wet wading, and waders do make a huge difference. I also know several people who have tested this extensively—Ralph Cutter is the country's leading expert on this and has served in an advisory capacity to several companies.

  • http://www.flyline.com Ralph Cutter

    I spent nearly 30 years in swift water rescue both as a rescuer and trainer. I've been involved in more body recoveries than I care to count. As a fishing guide I have a personal and professional interest in wading safety and as such have purposefully swam through hundreds of rapids in various types of wading gear. While making a wading safety video for SIMMS, I probably logged a mile of swimming in waders during the filming alone.

    The sea anchor effect that Ross refers to is very real and very terrifying. Your body drifts slower than the current and if your head is upstream the water can flare the top of your waders open and then steer you in any damn direction it feels like. You are absolutely helpless once this happens. To prevent this from happening a strong tight wading belt is required. If you are crossing in a dicey situation, pull the belt up to the top of the waders.

    If you fall, unless you are in a boulder field in swift water, do NOT drift passively downstream feet first. This technique is for swimmers wearing life jackets – not someone wearing waders. Face downstream (the current can't turn you into a sea anchor) and aggressively swim to shore.

  • http://www.yellowstoneangler.com George Anderson

    With the tests I've done in a pool, I found that wearing a wader belt definitely helped from keeping my waders from filling up, but only for about a minute or so. After that, if you are in deep water the waders will eventually fill up and make swimming very difficult. Still, wearing a wader belt is the smart thing to do, especially when you are fishing big water.

  • Steven

    Somebody is going to need to explain to me how water can steer you in any direction if there's already water in your waders.

    Does new water replace old water?

    It would strike me that the appropriate analogy might be the cushion in front of a rock.

    • Ross Purnell, Editor

      It works the same way as a sail on a boat. New air does not need to replace old air to exert force. In fact, it is the very principle that air (or water) cannot be replaced that creates the pressure. If the sail or waders had a huge hole and the water could pass through, and thereby water could be replaced, there would be far less pressure.

  • Andrew

    This is interesting, and timely as I'm having this discussion simultaneously on two boards. I respect Cutter's opinion very much.

    But, the sea anchor effect still baffles me somewhat for the following reason. In a boat, the sea anchor is attached to the boat, which helps ensure that the sea anchor stays open to do its job.

    But if you take a sea anchor that is in current, and cut it loose, I suspect it will no longer hold that shape. It would then simply turn into a something like a wet rag adrift.

    Unless or until the fisherman grabs ahold of a tree limb (for example), I don't see what's going to keep the sea anchor effect going.

  • Thomas

    Steven, have you ever gone wading? On very hot summer days, I go wading in swim shorts and am fine even in fast current up to my waist. When the water is cold, and I use a wader, it's a different situation. Although my wader is pretty tight, I have a harder time wading when the water level is the same as when I was wearing swim shorts.There is definitely more noticeable pressure trying to push you downstream. Also, when you go in the water with a wader, the pressure of the water pushes the wader onto your body (sort of like a vacuum seal – that's how it feels to me). If your wader were to get filled completely with water, there would be no more vacuum seal and your wader would be pretty much filled up like a balloon. That would mean way more surface area for the current to push on. As Ross mentioned, if you had a swimsuit on, you would feel less of the water pressure pushing on you, but if you throw on a sumo wrestling suit, you will definitely feel a greater amount of water pressure.

  • Steve Schaefer

    Wouldn't wearing waders with the belt cinched tight along with a good pfd being worn properly solve most of the problem?

  • Rupert

    Good discussion but Steve, I have nearly drowned in a Skeena tributary and waders as well as fishing jacket with a hood nearly did for me so honestly I do not really care how much this topic is intellectualised I am afraid you are quite simply wrong.

  • mahanvey25

    In response to Ralph Cutters "The Big Swim" I must agree with him whole-heartedly with all aspects covered. I too have been a scuba diver for forty plus years, and a fly fisher for less than ten and had a near death experience, (NDE) on lake Fork about five years ago while fishing from my tube.

    As most Texans know Fork is a heavy boating lake and while I was working one bank I heard a boat throttle down behind me about fifty yards away. I looked around and saw the rear transom digging in the water and didn't think anything else about it. A short time later my NDE slapped me in the face when a large wave from the boats transom slapped the back of my "U" tube and threw me face forward into the lake.

    Now I was head down in the lake with all kinds of flotation below my waist holding it that way! At first I was in shock in the cold March water and surely wanted to inhale some of it, but I got my wits about me and thought to myself, "get your head up, take a breath and think!"

    Using my most capable hands I paddled myself to the surface and took a breath, then I thought "You are a scuba diver, you have fins on so swim to the shore you dummy," I took another breath and put my head back down and kicked to shore. The whole incident was over in less than two minutes but I could have drowned if I had not thought it out.

    I had a ten dollar belt on my waders at my chest height which went quickly to the bottom of Fork when I took those deep breaths. My recommendation is to find a really good belt that has a quick release similar to a cars seat belt. This will not end up in the lake until you want it too!

    I was not wearing a PFD because "After all, I had an inflated tube all the way around me! How can I sink?" Fly Fishing is a fun, safe, sport most of the time. Enjoy it and go home safe.

    Michael Hanvey