Unique designs, colors set Helena-built drift boats apart

BILLINGS – The trout don’t care, but the bright tie-dye patterned oars and angler braces and the hook-jawed brown trout from hell painted on each side of the hull make Garry Stocker’s drift boat one of the most stylish crafts on western Montana’s rivers.

“His is about as bright as they get,” said Mike Ward, co-owner of Adipose Boatworks in Helena, which built the customized craft. “He’s got about everything imaginable in that boat.”

In an angling world where subdued colors like tan, light blue, green and grey are standard, Stocker’s boat rocks the rivers where it’s rowed. It’s like blaring heavy metal at a classical music concert.

“It’s just really cool to see it going down the river and the fish are basically eating the waterline,” said Joan Stocker, Garry’s wife.

The Stockers own Montana Fly Goods in Helena. They also operate Big Sky Expeditions, a fishing outfitting business that mainly guides on the busy Missouri and hard-to-get-on Smith rivers, although they also travel to the state’s other premier trout waters.

It was about three years ago that Stocker got his Flow skiff from the hometown manufacturer. One of his employees, Nick Lulow, designed the killer brown trout emblazoned on the sides. Lulo also created a Montana Fly Goods sticker that features a cowboy hat-wearing skull with sunglasses. The hat has a red, white and blue bandana, just like Garry’s straw cowboy hat. Behind the skull are crossed fly rods and below are two of the killer brown trout.

“Just the Adipose boat is great,” Joan said. “But Garry is a pretty colorful guy, so to make it more like him is neat.”

In addition to the artistic touches, the boat is tricked out with some no-nonsense amenities like a built-in 10-foot rod-storage compartment, built-in tie downs on the galvanized, no-rust trailer and lots of room inside the 15-foot-long, 6-foot-wide boat for a cooler and three people.

Joan said the boat was a family affair. She surprised Garry with the bright oars and casting braces. Her son helped build the boat’s boxes and cover.

The made-in-Montana boats have grown in popularity across the United States since Adipose Boatworks opened in November 2009. Co-owner Tracy Allen is credited with the unique skiff-like design that makes for a stable, low, easy-to-row craft.

“Tracy made about 16 boats himself out of wood, aluminum and then fiberglass,” Ward said.

When Ward, then a fishing guide, rowed Allen’s skiff he lobbied him to make more. Then the two went into business together.

“It is 40 percent easier to row,” which is huge for guides who spend months on the water, Ward said.

“I can over-row it,” Joan said. “It’s so easy to row that you can hold it so much easier.”

About the only change from the original fiberglass design was the addition of the casting braces in 2011, Ward said.

“I like sitting down because I like being closer to the fish,” he said. “But I understand it’s not all about what I want.”

The boats have become so popular that Ward said they sell faster than his shop can make them.

“It takes about two weeks to build a boat,” he said. “This year we’re shooting for 75 boats.”

That’s more than they originally were producing as they learned the best techniques and the ins and outs of the fiberglass manufacturing process. The first boat took three months to build.

“It was a steep learning curve,” Ward said.

The company gets its name from the adipose fin on a fish, located on their back between the dorsal fin and tail. On hatchery-bred steelhead and salmon, fish managers clip off the adipose fin to show they are not wild and can be kept by anglers.

“So every fish with an adipose fin is a wild fish,” Ward said. “There’s just something about fishing in places where fish are wild and self-sustaining.”