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Gilman can modify your square top to take the grips.
Transition from Oar-rights -> Gilman Grips w/o Oar Rights?
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OH? I'll keep that nugget in the back of my mind.
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Awesome. Not sure how I get my oars to NW MT without paying a fortune.
3 weeks removed from Grand Canyon, where I used Gilmans for the first time (and the entire time). No issues and prefer them to oar rights. No need for both.
I will still use oar rights on my drift boat (12' Stealthcraft minifly) where I fish solo most of the time in super shallow rock ledge east coast water. It is nice to just drop the oars and make a cast or two, then make a correction stroke and start fishing again.
However, for whitewater, Gilman's are pretty sweet. I am impressed enough that I am considering getting a set for my Aire Bobcat (for primarily the Ocoee river)
I will still use oar rights on my drift boat (12' Stealthcraft minifly) where I fish solo most of the time in super shallow rock ledge east coast water. It is nice to just drop the oars and make a cast or two, then make a correction stroke and start fishing again.
However, for whitewater, Gilman's are pretty sweet. I am impressed enough that I am considering getting a set for my Aire Bobcat (for primarily the Ocoee river)
Maybe not stubby enough, but stubby versions of oar rights do exist.
Stubbed Oar Right
Stubbed Oar Rights - an oar stop that positions your oar for maximum stoke efficiency with short shaft that allows you to choke up on the oar to clear the oar lock for a quick feathering option.
www.sawyerstation.com
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When I was Kayaking going to a bent shaft made a huge difference in my comfort paddling and was a game changer for me. My very first job in the early 90s was the PNC method which I was not a fan of and I’ve been open oar locks ever since. Flat water I can see some value in something that makes the process less brainless and strenuous and sounds like the Gilman might provide that to the extent and would be interested in trying if I ever run across the opportunity.
Hey man. You spelled douchebag wrong.
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421 Posts
Gilman Grips are the greatest innovation to oars since the composite oar shaft.
When I began rowing eight years ago, I tried rowing with open oar locks. It sucked! There were so many times I went to make a big move and my oar sliced through the water because I didn’t have the grip oriented correctly. So, I bought the hinged Oar Rites that flip up if you want them to. I thought the hinged route would give me options to row with open oar locks when I wanted to. Thanks to posts on the buzz like the one above mocking people who use oar rites or posts that waxes poetic on the beauty of feathering your oars, every now and then I’d try rowing with the hinges up. I always ended up slicing my big moves worse than an 80’s Ginsu knife commercial. It sucked and I hated it. So, I rowed with them down 99.9% of the time.
When I got my new cat, I thought I would try Gilman grips even though it was rigged with pins and clips. I know, dumb right? I ended up just really liking the feel of the counterbalanced Gilman grip in my hands. I decided to put a pair on some oars on one of my round boats. It was a game changer. Gilman grips work as well as oar rites. No more slicing in big water when you needed to make a big move. There is no learning curve, they are completely intuitive. It is plug and play. I ended up putting counter-weighted Gilman grips on every set of oars I own. That is six oars for each of my round boats. I run two spares, one has a right hand grip, and the other a left hand grip. I also have stern frames that use a pair of oars that are 1 foot shorter than my center frame oars. Including the cat, that’s 20 oars with Gilman Grips. And now I love rowing with open oar locks. (P.S. As much as I hate to admit it, the buzzards that waxed poetic on feathering and rowing with open oarlocks ended up being right. It’s awesome and I love it!)
Just to give you an idea of how easy it is to transition to Gilman grips: My teenagers learned to row on oar rites. I transitioned them to Gilman grips for the first time when we did our Hells Canyon trip in 2020. They rowed wild sheep, and Granite their first day on the GG’s. When I asked them what they thought, “I like them, dad”. That’s my experience. YMMV.
![Water Boat Water resources Paddle Fluvial landforms of streams]()
![Water resources Watercraft Boat Water White]()
![Water Boat Water resources Paddle Fluvial landforms of streams]()
![Water resources Watercraft Boat Water White]()
When I began rowing eight years ago, I tried rowing with open oar locks. It sucked! There were so many times I went to make a big move and my oar sliced through the water because I didn’t have the grip oriented correctly. So, I bought the hinged Oar Rites that flip up if you want them to. I thought the hinged route would give me options to row with open oar locks when I wanted to. Thanks to posts on the buzz like the one above mocking people who use oar rites or posts that waxes poetic on the beauty of feathering your oars, every now and then I’d try rowing with the hinges up. I always ended up slicing my big moves worse than an 80’s Ginsu knife commercial. It sucked and I hated it. So, I rowed with them down 99.9% of the time.
When I got my new cat, I thought I would try Gilman grips even though it was rigged with pins and clips. I know, dumb right? I ended up just really liking the feel of the counterbalanced Gilman grip in my hands. I decided to put a pair on some oars on one of my round boats. It was a game changer. Gilman grips work as well as oar rites. No more slicing in big water when you needed to make a big move. There is no learning curve, they are completely intuitive. It is plug and play. I ended up putting counter-weighted Gilman grips on every set of oars I own. That is six oars for each of my round boats. I run two spares, one has a right hand grip, and the other a left hand grip. I also have stern frames that use a pair of oars that are 1 foot shorter than my center frame oars. Including the cat, that’s 20 oars with Gilman Grips. And now I love rowing with open oar locks. (P.S. As much as I hate to admit it, the buzzards that waxed poetic on feathering and rowing with open oarlocks ended up being right. It’s awesome and I love it!)
Just to give you an idea of how easy it is to transition to Gilman grips: My teenagers learned to row on oar rites. I transitioned them to Gilman grips for the first time when we did our Hells Canyon trip in 2020. They rowed wild sheep, and Granite their first day on the GG’s. When I asked them what they thought, “I like them, dad”. That’s my experience. YMMV.
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You need to add a 1’ strap to each
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421 Posts
Yes. The ring on the fly’s corners strips the TPU off of the grip. I had Matt Nelson add larger rings to my DragonFly after I wrecked a pair of Gilman Grips. Now there’s 2 rings on each corner of the fly, one for traditional grips and one for GG’s. The new ring that fits over the GG also is larger than the diameter of the shaft. Matt sewed up some Velcro and webbing baskets for oars with GG’s. It like a little webbing cup that fits over the top of the grip. The baskets are ok. Another solution instead of baskets would be to add a rubber oar stop donut about 6” down the shaft from the grip. The larger ring would hit the oar stop.
I just ended up buying and using Matts’s pole set. I gave up on the oars as poles after my sister in law forced the small ring over the grip and shredded all the rubber off of another Gilman grip. We were camping on a beach at Riggins. I was gone doing a day run. A big wind gust knocked one pole off so she “fixed it.”
There is probably a better solution for making your fly work with Gilman grips. But there’s no solution for stupid. As long the fly has those small rings someone’s going to wreck your grips.
I just ended up buying and using Matts’s pole set. I gave up on the oars as poles after my sister in law forced the small ring over the grip and shredded all the rubber off of another Gilman grip. We were camping on a beach at Riggins. I was gone doing a day run. A big wind gust knocked one pole off so she “fixed it.”
There is probably a better solution for making your fly work with Gilman grips. But there’s no solution for stupid. As long the fly has those small rings someone’s going to wreck your grips.
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P.S. the poles are a lot easier to carry up from the raft any way.
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And if you wax your rope wraps, it's super annoying when other people drop your oars in the sand while helping take down teh fly
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What’s the benefit to waxing wraps?
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Re being ‘mocked’ for using oar rites… as a 61yo ex commercial guide who has a ton of river miles, it’s my experience that those folks who do the mocking are the ones who lack perspective from experience; If you have done enough rowing and continue to do so throughout your life, chances are tendinitis will set in and that’s why many of us go to these solutions.
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Sick setup! what boat is that? Zephyr?
Yeah you read my posts you'll find a lot of that. Guess I don't spend enough time douching. Notice you got it right though haha! Touchay!
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