Al Agnew

Truer words were never spoken, Bobber...I'm now up to two nearly identical tandems (Old Town Penobscot 16s) plus my old 15 ft. Grumman that my brother in law is "taking care of", four solos, a folding canoe--along with the jet boat and part owner of a raft. And my wife is okay with us getting toons for low water out West. I still think that Buffalo designed that little canoe for the kayak market, though...they couldn't have been designing it for whitewater because if they were, they knew absolutely nothing about whitewater canoes. A whitewater canoe needs those blunt ends but it also needs high sides and plenty of rocker, which the Buffalo is distinctly lacking. Not many places in the Ozarks where you need a whitewater canoe, though. Of major streams, mostly the St. Francis in MO and the Boston Mountain streams in AR. And I think I could do all of them in reasonable water (not too high but high enough to navigate) in an Old Town Pack with good flotation bags. But I'm not one of those guys who wait for floods and then float little obscure creeks that are barely big enough to have names.

Fast-locks from BPS, second smallest size, nickel. Or any similar brand, like Duo-locks.

I wasn't trying to cut your number crunching down...just following up on it as was Eric and others. It's exactly the kind of stuff I like to do for fun--I guess you'd call us angling math geeks. Thanks for posting it, and sorry if I came off wrong.

Yeah, only difference between me and cwc is that I carry a lot more soft plastics and jigs which I don't use.... Wayne and Brownieman...the bigger size Hellbender was my family's favorite lure for catching big largemouth from Wappapello Lake back in the 1960s. Dad fished the shad-colored one, I fished the frogback, Mom fished the coachdog...and we all caught about the same number of fish. I guarantee you, the smaller size will still catch fish on the rivers, too. Old favorite lures deserve a thread of their own...I can't remember whether we had such a thread here or if it was over on riversmallies.

You could quickly fry your brain cells thinking about stuff like this... Mean flow probably isn't the best indicator even of the flow. Trout and other fish habitat is limited by the low water periods. So average low flows are probably a better indicator than mean flow. Mean flow is skewed by the very high flows of major floods. A river with a big watershed, like the Niangua, for instance, is going to have a greater percentage difference between mean flow and average low flow, compared to the upper Current, which has a very small watershed upstream and so almost never floods huge volumes of water. In other words, not as much difference between low flows and floods on the Current as on the Niangua, or almost any other stream in MO that you could name. The Meramec has a HUGE difference between low flows and floods, because it has a very large watershed both on the upper Meramec and the Dry Fork to furnish great volumes of flood water. I like Eric's take on it, too. Although cfs DOES measure the volume of water flowing through the river, it does not measure the volume of space the fish have to live in. When it comes to trout habitat, a large river that has a fairly low gradient, like the Niangua, will probably have less trout habitat per mile than a a river of similar size (like the Eleven Point) that flows faster. On the other hand, the Niangua has more AREA of trout habitat than a smaller stream with just as much water with good current. See what I mean about frying your brain cells?

I could tell you I'm here, but then I'd have to kill you. So, I'm in Urzbekistan.

Yep, the top two pictures are palming, though I've seen people palm the reel a little farther forward, as well. As long as you still have room to get the thumb of your right hand on the spool with the rest of your right hand on the handle, you can make two handed casts and never have to move your left hand. Beats Wayne's method of casting right handed and then switching the right hand to the reel handle. As I said on the other thread, I started out with a baitcaster at about age 8, and it was a direct drive (no free spool, the handle turned backwards on the cast) Shakespeare. An educated thumb was definitely needed. I was naturally right handed, though I've found that I can learn to do most things with my left hand as well. Casting was no exception, and when I started fishing local tournaments as a teenager, I taught myself to cast left handed so I wouldn't have to switch hands to reel. Only took about two or three days. I've always used short, light rods for river fishing, and wouldn't dream of palming the reel or casting two handed in that type of fishing, but I cast longer, heavier rods two handed when reservoir bass fishing. Little oddities...I cast a spinning reel right handed and reel left. But when I tried a left hand retrieve baitcaster, it felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable to reel with my left hand...much more uncomfortable than casting a spinning reel left handed and reeling it right handed. Also, when I started casting as a kid, my hand wasn't big enough to wrap my index finger around the trigger and keep the rest of my fingers behind the reel, so I learned to cast with all four fingers on the handle behind the reel right handed. But when I taught myself to cast left handed my hand was big enough, so I now cast left handed with finger on the trigger, but when I pick up a rod in my right hand to cast it (which I do when lobbing minnows for walleye or catfish, for some reason) all four fingers still go behind the reel. Muscle memory is funny that way.

Take a good look at the guy in the green one... This illustrates a point I made somewhere about fishing in a canoe versus paddling a canoe. I'm sure that with a double bladed paddle, paddling one of those little Buffalo canoes is fun. But where the heck are you gonna put a fishing rod in that thing? And yeah, the guy is sitting low enough to have as stable a center of gravity as possible (might as well be in a kayak). But in a decent canoe you don't have to sit that low, and one of the advantages to a solo canoe over a kayak is the higher seating position that gives you better sight lines while fishing (and I maintain also makes fishing more comfortable, as opposed to simply paddling).

Eric, they call it a keel, and that's as good a name as any for it, but its effect on tracking and maneuverability is insignificant. To have any real effect, a keel needs to be deeper and flatter than those little ridges on the Old Towns. The keel on an aluminum canoe has a little more of an effect, though still not anything like the keel on a sailing vessel, for instance. Initial stability is a function of the width and flatness of the canoe bottom in relation to its length. Flattish bottomed canoes, and those that are 33 or more inches wide, tend to feel pretty stable, while narrow, shallow-arch bottoms will feel more tippy. Secondary or final stability is more a function of the shape of the sides of the canoe. Some canoes have rounded sides that actually curve inward at the top (called tumblehome). Once one of those canoes gets up onto its side at all, it is no more stable than a log. Canoes that have good final stability (they don't actually tip easily) have straight or even slightly flared sides. And a deeper canoe, one with higher sides, will also have more final stability.

I agree with siusaluki that the loop knot definitely makes a difference in the smaller size floating Rapalas. I'm also convinced that on SOME lures, the split ring makes a difference. Other lures it doesn't. However, I always take the split rings off and use a small cross-lock snap. I don't use the smallest size snap because it has failed me in the past, but the second-smallest size is a little stronger. Once in a while if you snug it up to the rod tip it will come unsnapped, so you have to check it now and then, but I've never lost a fish because of the snap since switching to the second smallest size. And while it doesn't matter on many lures as far as action, I use the snap mainly because it's easy to switch lures and exceedingly easy to tie a palomar knot to the snap rather than trying to tie a palomar directily to a big two treble hook lure.

The ratio of length to waterline width is usually greater on longer canoes...in other words, a 30 inch wide 14 footer will track better than a 30 inch 12 footer, simply because it's more slender. But those little keels on the Pack and Guide and Disco 19 don't do anything for tracking, actually, nor do they make any difference in maneuverability. They are not meant to do so. They are molded that way solely to stiffen the bottom of the canoe and make it do less flexing (oil-canning). Canoes like the Pack and Guide that have relatively wide, flat bottoms need the stiffening that the so-called keel does, while a shallow arch bottom like on the Vagabond does not. Eric is right, however, in that they can actually make the canoe a bit less stable when the "keel" hangs up on something, and they also concentrate the wear and tear on the bottom of the canoe a little more.

I agree about the fin clipping. I know it supposedly doesn't hurt or hinder the fish, but I'd really like at least the illusion that the fish I caught are survivors, not study subjects, and besides, it's just ugly. I like to catch trout and smallmouth partly because they are pretty fish. It's bad enough when you catch a one fresh from the hatchery and it barely struggles, and its fins are nubs and its nose looks like somebody took a wood rasp to it.

When fishing with a partner, even the three minute rule is longer than necessary. Get everything ready to launch before getting in line, have one of you in the boat and ready, back it down until it starts to float slightly, hit the brakes sharply, the boat slides off, pull out...one minute tops. When fishing by myself in the jetboat, I simply get the boat ready, everything detached, tie a 30 foot section of rope from the front of the boat to the wench pedestal on the trailer, back it down, hit the brakes, it floats off. Pull out slowly and carefully until the trailer is mostly out of water, get out quickly, grab the rope at the pedestal and pull the boat into the bank off the ramp, untie the rope from the trailer and tie the boat off so it doesn't float away in the current, and pull out. Maybe 2-3 minutes. Loading, just back the trailer in, get in the boat and drive it up on the trailer, hook the wench and crank it up the rest of the way, and pull out. Problem is that most people don't plan ahead and don't practice any part of this...don't know how far to back the trailer in, can't back up, can't drive the boat onto the trailer. A little practice, a little attention to detail, and it should be easy...except when launching into strong current. That can be tough. But I call it the "center of the universe" syndrome. There are a lot of people who never think of anybody but themselves, whether it be at the launch ramp, in the grocery store when they park their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle, or stop in doorways to figure out where they want to go...they are sure that the universe revolves around them.

Wasn't trying to avoid telling about mods...just got back from three days of fishing. I for sure did not invent Chief's skirt on the belly hook thing...in fact, it was first shown to me by a guy that I considered an old timer when I was a kid. He did it with Midge-orenos, the Big Piney guys did it with Luck 13s. I now make my own, with a simpler, easier to make shape than either of them, and it works quite well, although for different lures you need different types of skirts to make them work perfectly. As for modifying Wiggle Warts, simplest way is to do as Gavin said and put a small strip of white pork rind or something similar on the back hook. You can also change out the back hook for a feathered treble. Or tie on a few strands of silicone on the back hook. Or you can dress the belly hook. But this can be tricky on deep-diving crankbaits. Too much bulk quickly kills the action of the bait. I often tie on just a few strands of silicone. But another thing I do is either change out the hooks for the Sure-set hooks where one prong of the treble hangs straight down off the belly when the hook is on the split ring, or bend the three hooks of the treble to where they are in the same position. This helps a bit in making the lure run straight when you put something on the belly hook. I also put things on the hook like half a small plastic stick worm like a Senko (but I use cheaper Senko knock-offs for this) that I've split into two tails. Most extensive modification is to remove both hooks, and screw on a metal hook hanger with a single treble, about halfway between where the original hooks were placed. This balances the lure a bit better and you can use a thicker skirt. I've also drilled a hole in the bait and put in some lead, then filled in the hole with epoxy, in order to make it a suspending lure. But I've also caught plenty of fish on an unmodified Wiggle Wart...

Speaking of price, it's all in whether you can afford it and whether it's THAT much better to justify the expense. I agree with others that there probably isn't enough difference between the Pack and the various incarnations of the 119 to justify the price difference. Ten or twelve pounds difference isn't that much. And, I'd say about the same thing for the Mohawk Solo 13. The greater length and slightly better design would barely be worth the price difference between it and the 119s to me. Now...I think I'd like Mohawk's Solo 14 better. It should track somewhat better and it will hold more stuff. Of course, the next step up in both price and value would be the Vagabond. It's definitely better overall than any of the others...better tracking, holds more stuff, lighter for its size. Is that worth the extra $300 or so over the next cheapest? Maybe not. But I could afford it and fell in love with it so I bought it.

You could divide my lures into three categories. One is the old tried and true reliables, two is the sometimes necessary but usually not used, and three is the new experiments. The problem with the new experiments is that they usually don't get experimented with unless the other stuff ain't working, and chances are at that point THEY ain't gonna work, either. So few new lures seem to graduate to either of the other two categories. But once in a while one does. I too want to have lures that cover the whole water column at all speeds, and I think between my old reliables and my sometimes necessary, I've pretty much got it covered. My river stuff goes in 5 3701 Plano boxes (the biggest size but only a bit over an inch thick) and 4 3600 boxes. Seems like a lot of storage and a lot of tackle, but in reality there are relatively few lures in that selection, just at least two of everything and a variety of sizes and colors. 3701 topwater box Three or four brands of walk-the-dog topwater lures, one brand and size popper, three or four prop lures, and two sizes of my homemade Subwalk. All of them are basically in light colors. Of those, the Sammys, poppers, and homemade Subwalks are now old reliables, the prop baits are in category two, and some of the other WTD lures are experiments. 3701 crankbait box A bunch of my homemade crankbaits in three basic color schemes, several modified Wiggle Warts, a few other deeper-diving crankbaits, a couple of floating Rattletraps. The homemade cranks are category one, Wiggle Warts category two, the other crankbaits are category three, the Rattletraps are for my wife because that's her favorite lure. 3701 spinnerbait and buzzbait box (had to cut out some dividers to make it work for these baits) A bunch of my homemade twin spins in three different colors, a number of "regular" spinnerbaits in the same three basic colors, and three sizes of buzzbaits in the same three colors. Twin spins and buzzbaits are mostly category one, regular spinnerbaits in category two. 3701 box for tubes and finesse worms--three colors and two sizes of tubes, two colors finesse worms. The 3.5 inch tubes are category one, finesse worms and smaller tubes category two. 3701 box for Superflukes and Senkos--two sizes Superflukes, two sizes Senkos, two colors flukes, three colors Senkos. Flukes are category one, Senkos category two. 3600 box for jigs and jig trailers--two sizes and three basic colors, three colors and varieties of hair jigs, assorted jig trailers. Jigs are category one, hair jigs category two. 3600 box for various spinnerbait trailers and curlytail grubs. 3600 box for jerkbaits--two sizes and assorted colors of mostly Pointers and X-Raps. Category two...but from fall to spring category one. 3600 box for all the hardware--hooks, sinkers, jig heads, all purpose tool, thermometer. In the cool to cold water period this all changes. I eliminate the topwater box, consolidate the cranks and spinnerbaits to a few varieties. Do I carry too much stuff? Absolutely. I could get by very well with less than half the stuff I carry. But I CAN carry it, so I don't feel guilty about it.

Like I said in the other thread, I always opt for my own shallow runner first if the water clarity is between 2 and 4 feet and the water temp is mid-50s or above. The reason is that I've simply caught huge numbers of fish on it through the years, and seldom run into days when it doesn't work and a deep runner does (though that has happened). There are several advantages to the shallow runner, however. One, it is less tiring to fish all day because it doesn't fight you all the way to the canoe as much. Two, it comes over submerged logs and rocks better. Three, all else being equal, I'd rather have a bass looking up at a lure against a bright sky than looking down at it, simply because I believe they get less of a good look at it and are more likely to hit it on pure reaction. And four, my shallow runner has a unique profile and wobble, which smallies in the rivers haven't seen as frequently. Active bass in warm weather streams are usually in relatively shallow water anyway, and usually willing to come up to a lure. However, if I decide for whatever reason that a deep diver is called for, I go with one that truly goes pretty deep. The medium depth runners, to my way of thinking, are the least desirable crankbaits, and I only use one when there's so much gunk on the bottom to foul the hooks that I have to keep the lure above the bottom but as close as possible. My shallow runner goes up to about two feet deep. The deep runners I use go at least 8 feet. If I'm fishing a deep runner, I want it to be digging up the bottom and bouncing off everything in the way, not going through the mid-depths.

Yeah, if I REALLY wanted to argue with Bigredbirdfan I could do it by PM

See my reply to you about the Buffalo in the other thread. Saw and responded to it before I saw this one. No way I'd go with the Buffalo at that price when I could get a Pack for not that much more and the 119 for less, not to mention the Mohawk, which is also a much better choice than the Buffalo. Mohawk is under new ownership, and so far there has been little said about whether their canoes still have the quality they did before. If I was going with the Mohawk, I'd go Royalex and not Royalite...Royalite seems to be much less durable. You can order Mohawks factory direct. If you're interested in spending the money for the Wenonah Vagabond, which in my opinion is the best choice of all for the average angler on Ozark streams, one possibility is to order it from Piragis Northwoods. They are up in Ely, Minnesota, but offer free shipping. (The way their free shipping works is that whenever one of their employees wants to travel to visit relatives or something, they load him up with boats and he drops them off at your door...might take a few weeks for it to happen, but they are nice folks that are very good to work with.) I don't know who carries Wenonahs in your area, but in St. Louis The Alpine Shop is a Wenonah dealer, though they don't always have Vagabonds in stock.

Given that it's an Ozark company, I'd LIKE to like Buffalo canoes, but unfortunately I just don't think their designs are very good. There is no way I'd choose the one you're looking at, unless I could get it REAL cheap. Will it work? Sure. But there are other designs out there that are WAY better. Here are my objections to the model you're interested in... Too short. A canoe that's under 10 feet will not track well at all, will not hold all the gear you might need for an overnight float, and stowing rods in it will be very problematical. Ends way too blunt. Ease of paddling, speed, and ability to paddle upstream if you wish are partly a function of how the canoe cuts through the water. The sharper the ends, the better. This one won't cut through the water, it'll push water ahead of it. Sides not high enough. In any kind of choppy water, with those blunt ends and low sides, this canoe will take on water. I wouldn't want to float Clabber Creek Shoals on the lower Buffalo in this canoe at normal water levels. Seat too low. Given the low sides, and the fact that the seat sits well below the gunwales, it can't be far off the floor of the canoe, making for what to me would be an uncomfortable ride. I suspect that this is Buffalo's entry into the "trying to cut into the kayak market" market. Small like a kayak, low like a kayak, probably would paddle best with a double bladed paddle like a kayak. Marginally better for fishing than a kayak, but there are much better fishing canoes. The two things I like...nice light weight, and the width at 36 inches, while making it more difficult to paddle, will also make it a design with a lot of initial stability for its size.

Hmm...I've fished all the Missouri trout rivers and the White, but much prefer the Western rivers if fishing for trout. Out West I've fished the Salmon, Snake, San Juan, Frying Pan, South Platte, several smaller Colorado creeks, and in Montana the Yellowstone, Madison, Gallatin, Boulder, Stillwater, Bighorn, and a bunch of creeks both in and out of Yellowstone Park. I gotta say the Yellowstone is my favorite. Challenging river, gorgeous water in a beautiful setting (though it could use a lot fewer trophy homes along the river), three species of trout including native Yellowstone cutthroats and about a billion whitefish to keep things interesting when the trout fishing is slow. Great hatches, good streamer fishing. Crowded, but not like the Bighorn or San Juan.

I grew up fishing stained water most of the time on Big River, and still believe that in warm weather on most rivers you can't beat a shallow-running crankbait, with deeper running cranks close behind. If the water clarity is between 2 and 4 feet, I'll ALWAYS have my homemade shallow crank on one rod anytime from April through October. Spinnerbaits are great in that situation as well. Larger topwater lures work, and a big dark-colored buzzbait usually gets a workout. And if fishing slow and on the bottom, I'll go with a jig and trailer rather than the tubes I usually use in clear water.

Here's another thing that just occurred to me, re Bigredbird's question about why Shimano is so alarmed about this... If you like your conspiracy theories, Japan is one of the biggest exploiters of ocean resources, and is notorious for overfishing the oceans and other oceanic environmental ills...and they kick and scream and then generally ignore it whenever any new regulations on their fishing are proposed by any international body or nation. Shimano is a Japanese company. Think maybe the president of Shimano is being pressured or just thinking about his corporate cronies from the home country by opposing the task force? Fact is that the U.S. angling market is actually a relatively small part of Shimano's international business...they do other things besides fishing equipment, and even in fishing equipment they have a bigger market, believe it or not, in Japan and Europe. I would not expect them to be in the forefront of fighting real or imagined restrictions on angling in the U.S...there are other companies that do more business in the U.S. and would have more to lose IF this is a bad thing. Are the other fishing tackle manufacturers screaming about this? Hmm....... And if you want to carry the conspiracy a bit further...Shimano IS a major advertiser for In-fisherman. Maybe they are pressuring In-fisherman to vocally oppose it?

I rigged up an anchor system by attaching an anchor cleat (one of those things where the anchor rope runs through a hole in a swinging structure so that when you pull on the rope it comes through the hole freely and as long as you keep tension on the rope it will go out, but when you let it go the structure swings down and stops the rope) to a 1X6 board with an eyelet on the outer end for the rope to run through after it comes through the cleat. I attached this to the end cap of the canoe with bolts and wingnuts. I used a doubled length of rubber-covered chain for the anchor. It worked well, but I eventually decided it just wasn't worth the hassle of attaching it and operating it. I used it mostly for winter fishing to hold the canoe is slow water. It can be quite dangerous, especially in cold water periods, to use an anchor in any kind of faster water, by the way--if it gets stuck in fast water it WILL swamp the canoe!

Phil, I'm going to try not to get into blatant politics here and simply give my thoughts on this whole issue... I took the time to read the entire report of the task force. I also read the In-fisherman article. What I don't see in the report is where, exactly, the task force is advocating a "preservationist policy" as In-fisherman asserted. The report talks about "invasive species", which could be construed to mean non-native trout and salmon in the Great Lakes, but I found no recommendation to specifically control or eradicate such species. The report was big on "ecosystem-based" management, which again could be construed to have a preservationist flavor, but nothing specific there either. In fact, it seems the report was long on general recommendations and goals, but specific management strategies such as closed fishing zones were not to be found. So why is In-fisherman (and the president of Shimano as Bigredbirdfan asked) so alarmed about this whole thing? Shimano seemed to be concerned, as is In-fisherman, that recreational fishing is not recognized as a key component of ocean and great lakes management. They are right in that, other than several references to "recreation", the report did not specifically address recreational fishing. Does this mean that recreational fishing will be ignored? Or would it be the "low man on the totem pole", first to be curtailed? Don't know. Maybe it is a problem worth pursuing. It did bother me that there were specific mentions of "overfishing" without noting that in most cases it is COMMERCIAL overfishing that is the problem. When it comes to oceanic and great lakes fisheries management, the commercial fishing industry has always had the upper hand, and if there is a conflict, recreational fishing has always had to take the leftovers. Look at any migratory fishery, and you'll see that the regulations are always the most restrictive on the "end user", the recreational angler who has to fish for what little is left after the commercial fishermen get theirs. What I would hope would happen under ecosystem-based, coordinated management like this report is advocating is that more protection would be given from commercial overfishing. With a few exceptions, recreational angling has little impact on the overall populations of oceanic and great lakes fish, and I'd hope that such management, being "science-based" as the report advocates, would recognize that fact and give the bulk of their effort to better management of the commercial fishing that causes most of the negative impacts to fisheries and ecosystems. Still, it would be good if recreational fishing has a strong presence in the agencies and advisory committees that the task force proposes. However, I would hope that when the report talks about "state agencies" which it would attempt to coordinate, these agencies would include the fish and game departments that are supposed to be managing their states' fisheries, so indirectly at least, recreational fishing WOULD be represented. So I'm wondering if Shimano is doing a kind of knee-jerk thing, where ANYTHING that MIGHT affect their bottom line is automatically opposed, before they even see any specifics that might affect them and their customers. It's a common thing for any industry that furnishes recreational products...I guarantee you that the ATV companies and dealerships were dead set against the Missouri law attempting to keep ATVs out of our streams--even though we all know that doing so was good for the streams and it hasn't seemed to hurt the companies' bottom line. I'd like to see some specifics of how recreational fishing is going to be curtailed, and the science behind those specifics, before I'll cry many tears over Shimano. And I think that maybe In-fisherman is doing much the same thing, worried about nebulous "preservationist policies" before they see the actual policies or the science behind them. I guess in the end it will all boil down to the specifics, and this task force certainly bears watching during the upcoming public comment period and afterward. But there are a LOT of potential good things that they are saying. We most certainly DO need coordination and ecosystem-based management of ocean resources, as well as another thing the report advocated--better watershed protection for the great lakes and oceans. Ask anybody who lives around and fishes the Chesapeake Bay, not so slowly dying from non-point source pollution in the rivers running into it. A lot of ocean ecosystems and fisheries are in deep dark trouble, and the short-term economic interests have ruled the roost for far too long.