I get the wedding ring calluses, otherwise not much issue.  In fact, during the rest of the year my hands are often stiff & sore.  After paddling for a day they tighten up.

What I find really nice is hand cream, Glysomed is my pick.  Not only good for the skin, but as I rub it in I get a nice hand massage.

My bottom hand.  Never dropped a paddle though! 

BrownTrout01 wrote on Jun 8^th, 2010 at 6:11am:

To or bottom hand? I get insane calluses. Takes a month to get dexterity back but I do toughen them up a week or two prior to avoid blisters.

OS

The death grip was something that was pointed out for me to improve on, and we were just in a swimming pool.  

Did not even realize I was doing it. Still have to try and be conscious of it, hard to break a habit  

OS,

I use the bike gloves for the same reason as you, to prevent blistering. Another possible approach is to toughen the skin prior to the trip (if possible). I know repeated soaking and then drying of the hand in brine water will help. Otherwise I think the gloves would help.

Old Salt,

I didn't mean to imply that you needed to change your grip or anything.

Normally I don't wear gloves for paddling but the bicycle gloves seem to give me a better grip then leather gloves do. I wondered if that also might translate into less stress to the hands.

After 35+ years of paddling, I know how to handle a paddle. My issue is soft hands. The past two trips have yielded blisters between thumb and forefinger, not from a 'deathgrip', but from softness.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, still considering options...

I've a $20 pair of neoprene paddling gloves & a $35 pair of fleece flyfishing gloves.  Both have their uses in various situations.

Some buddies use bicycling gloves and like that, but they already own the gloves for cycling.

I like two pairs, one for dirty work, one to keep reasonably clean.  The fleece never does hard/dirty work since they come to bed on occasion.  Moving rocks or hot logs, cheap-o neoprene.

Grip the paddle lightly.  A death-grip will have no affect on the paddling, just on your sore hands.

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I got a pair of these NRS gloves for XMAS a couple of year's ago - they are a nice glove - light and cool.

I just about always use gloves - If I'm paddling long days, I tend to get either a sore spot or callus build up in the gap between thumb and first finger, where I hold the paddle shaft - probably not after the first day, or the second, but by the fifth or sixth long day.  Wearing the gloves keeps that from happening.  the colder, wetter the conditions, the more important the gloves become.  I'll normally have a pair of neoprene gloves for cold weather paddling, but its gotta be pretty cold for me to use them.

I've used bycicle gloves ( the oen finger kind with mesh back) - bought a cheap pair at walmart I'm still using - they leached black dye when wet, and my hands would get black from that, but now that all the dye is gone, they are ok.  Even these cheap gloves work a lot better than no glove for me.  I wore tham on a memorial day weekend trip - It was me in my canoe and four guys in sea kayaks, and I was paddling fast and hard to stay ahead of them, to set a pace they wouldn't complain about - did 30 miles the first day, and 35 the second with no lillydipping allowed - I know my hands would have been hurting without the gloves.

I'm w/ brown trout and use the open finger padded bicycle gloves. They work for me.