Understand River Etiquette Tips for Whitewater Kayaking

Video Transcript

"River etiquette is really important if you become a river user. Everyone has an opportunity to use the river and should. Out here in the river, we see everything from rafters, to white water kayakers, canoeers, fly-fishing, and people tubing just enjoy the river We just first of all, want to be polite to each other and in know that everyone has the right to use the river. A couple of other things to keep in mind is people who are paddling downstream have the right of way. So just like your mom and dad used to say, before you cross you the street look both ways, you want to do that here on the river. So you before you peal out, you make sure that you're not peeling out right in front of a raft or another canoeist or another kayaker. Give the people coming downstream the right of way. If you're surfing on a wave and somebody's coming downstream, you may have waited in line for that wave, but that person may be a little out of control, so you want to kind of go to the side of the wave. Maybe even peal off, let people coming downstream in general have the right of way. I know people are purposely maliciously trying to knock you off the wave. It just may be the way things happen. A couple of other things is I call it the rule of tonnage. Something bigger and slower thank me, I'm going to give the right of way. For example, a raft. If I'm paddling my kayak and they're coming down, they're probably going to move a little slower than I am, so I'm going to keep that in mind. The other thing we have here in the deer field is lots of people fly fishing. They cast just as much behind them as they do in front of them so you don't want to come to them and say how's your fishing. Give them a wide burst so they can enjoy their day fishing just as well as you want to enjoy you day paddling. There are a lot of river users out there as well as landowners, so you don't want to get out on somebody's property and throw trash around and things like that. You want to respect their land use as well as your own use on the river, so take the time, get to know people, be friendly; it'll go a long way."