Time was, when you saw a drift boat going down the river you thought "guide". More and more these days such is not the case. Over the years private anglers and boaters have begun to appreciate the McKenzie style dory for what it is..and outstanding fishing boat. Especially fly fishers who appreciate the clean lines and snag free interiors. One of the big advantages of drift boats is maneuverability and shallow draft but that doesn't always work out the way you plan in low rocky (or in our case..ledge ridden) rivers. When a fully loaded drift boat collides with an immovable object damage will occur. Despite manufacturers claims of indistructability and lifetime hull puncture warranties, you should "fear rocks"! Lifetime warranties are all fine and good but if you live in the Southeast, shipping a boat back to it's manufacturer is going to cost you, a lot! And when you get the estimate to fix damage that is considered normal wear and tear, you may be surprised. So what are your options? You can take the boat to a local guy who probably makes a living working on boats that aren't meant to hit things, and hope he does the job right, or you can fix it yourself!
For this discussion we will be talking about fiberglass boats. They dominate the market and for good reason. Aluminum driftboats are durable and long lasting but repairing them is beyond the capability of most fly fishers. Unless you have the equipment and expertise to heliarc weld, you should leave aluminum boats to the pros. Not so with fiberglass, repair materials are readily available and the skill needed is easily mastered with a little practice.
First you should dry the boat completely, it should have been out of the water for several days and preferably stored inside before you begin any repairs. Small dings and scrapes can sometimes be fixed with the boat still on the trailer but if you go beyond that the boat will have to be turned over to expose the bottom. Take off knee locks, anchor brackets, oar locks, anything that might be damaged when the boat is rolled over and remove any seats and lockers you can to reduce weight. 
Notice the fiberglass cloth tape covering both the chines! Get a buddy or two and roll the boat over. Drift boats are built tough and can be supported on their side while you flip them over. Once you have it flipped, clean the bottom thoroughly and let it dry. Inspect it for damage. The chines, or edges usually take the brunt of the hits so look them over good. Grind or sand out any loose, damaged, or delaminating glass you find. You want to get down to clean, well bonded material. For small dings and scrapes, especially those that don't go all the way through the gel coat (the outer protective coating) all you really need is body filler. Most marine supply stores sell a product called "marine-tex" and it works well for these kind of repairs. Mix it according to instructions and putty it in with a plastic squeegee. Let it set up and sand it down smooth. That's it! You can just use auto body touch up paint to cover the area if you like, or leave it as is.
If your bottom looks like the one in the picture or worse, you have some work to do! Inspect the deep gouges thoroughly, check for soft spots that are getting weak and clean out any dirt or loose fiberglass from the scrapes. Sand everything with 80 grit paper, either by hand or with a random orbital sander and blow off the dust, clean the entire bottom with solvents to remove any grease or oils. Lacquer thinner or mek work great for this. I would recommend a long sleeve shirt and dust mask for these steps because fiberglass strands are itchy and cling to exposed skin. Now off to the marine or auto body supply store. Get the amount of 6 or 8 oz fiberglass cloth you think you may need, and a quart or two of either polyester, or epoxy resin and hardener. Epoxy is harder, and bonds better to dissimilar materials, but polyester is less expensive, easier to work with, and is what was used to build your boat in the first place. Also get some mixing cups, stir sticks, and disposable latex gloves. This stuff is messy! Also pick up some short strand fiberglass reinforced, waterproof body filler (bondo) and a few beers probably wouldn't hurt.
Deep divots, especially at the chines will have to be built back up by dry cutting fiberglass cloth to fill the hole. Start small and cut each piece progressively bigger so the final piece overlaps the repair by an inch or so on each side. Once you have your repair pieces cut and placed together next to the repair area you can mix up some resin. Start small, depending on the temperature and humidity you will only have a few minutes to work before it begins to set up, or harden. Don't try to force hardening resin into a repair, mix a new batch and begin again. It won't take long to get a feel for this but if you mix a whole can and only get to use a little before it hardens, well, it can get expensive! Wet the repair area with resin using a foam brush and begin laying each layer of cloth you precut into the repair, wet it just enough for it to become transparent, squeegee off the excess, you don't want pools of resin left on the surface, it will weaken the patch. Use this procedure with all the repair areas. It sounds complicated but you get a feel for it pretty quick. Try to be neat with the resin and glass because any drips or runs will have to be sanded off once it dries. For really rough and damaged chines it's a good idea to run a strip of glass cloth or tape all the way down the length of the chine exposed to the waterline. Just make sure the surface is sanded and prepared according to the previous instructions. Prep is everything, take the time to do it right! If you have an actual hole, it will have to be reinforced on both sides to make the repair last. As long as the fiberglass and resin remain tacky you can just keep adding layers, if you take a break and allow it to set up, it's best to lightly sand and clean with solvent before you add any more layers. Once you are finished with the glassing, drink the beer and let it set up, usually overnight. Come back and inspect your work, make sure everything set up correctly. If anything is soft it may need more time or you mixed the resin and hardener incorrectly in which case it will need to be removed, cleaned and sanded. If you took care to measure and follow instructions though, this should not be a problem.
Light sand everything, you will probably need to mix up some of the body filler according to instructions and fill some areas and sand to make them smooth. How smooth is up to you. My boat is a work boat ,so I don't get too anal about this as long as it's reasonable and doesnt look like a monkey did it. If you want to put in the time you can restore it back to factory appearance. You can then either re paint with marine epoxy paint using the roll and tip method, or use spray equipment if you have it. Both will look really nice, or you can take it to a fiberglass shop and have them re apply gel coat. I would not recommend applying gel coat youself, as it's pretty tricky stuff and not really necessary for most of our purposes.
Congratulate yourself! You just repaired your own boat, did it right, and most likely saved yourself hundreds of dollars. The next time you hit a rock or ledge you can quietly tell yourself.. "I can fix that" ..
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Here we are at the end of Spring already. Memorial day is just around the corner and what a great Spring it has been. Even with the low water flows fishing for trout has by and large been great. Good, if sporadic, caddis hatches on the Holston have given us some great dry fly action and the nymph fishing has produced an excellent number of quality fish. The Clinch has been maintaining a low water generation for quite a while now while TVA trys to fill Norris lake back up since draining all the water out after the late Winter rains. Despite what you may have read Norris lake is only a couple of feet below Summer pool and the water situation is far from critical. Looking at the schedule for tomorrow it seems they are going to begin running the recreation flows this weekend and the added water will do the fish, and the river bed a lot of good. We expect to be fishing the Clinch a quite a bit more during the Summer months and the fishing should be outstanding. 
