Who's Using Canoes Here?

[jwarren]

I'm a new member to the forum and about a year into fly fishing. Needless to say...I'm eaten up with it.

Who here is using a canoe(not kayak) to fly fish from and what model? I really want a 15-16' tandem canoe that I can cartop to the river or stream of choice. It needs to be very stable and still maneaurable. I've been looking at various models from Bell Canoe, Wenonah, and Nova Craft. I will plan on paddling and perhaps keeping a 40# thrust electric motor on board.

I'm also considering a 15' gheenoe but that would require a real motor. Your thoughts? Thanks

[ColdWaterFshr]

I've got an Old Town 158 that I've put quite a few miles on. Its a heavy old tank, but it suits me fine.

What rivers would you say you are going to frequent?

Very stable AND very maneuverable are 2 descriptive terms that at are at odds with each other. You can find happy mediums though.

Fly-fishing FROM a canoe is not the easiest, though I occasionally do it. Mainly I use the canoe to transport me to places on the river to get out and fly-fish. Spincasting or baitcasting from the canoe is different - I do sit in the boat usually for that, but I'm chasing smallmouth in those situations.

For Ozark streams and rivers, I would look at Royalex boats by Wenonah, Old Town, Mad River and a few others. Don't get a boat with a keel unless you think you'll be doing more lake paddling than river. Check out Craigslist in your area. I helped a buddy get a like-new royalex Wenonah 16 foot Spirit I think it was, pair of nice wooden paddles and a yakima rack for only $600.

Skip the motor idea.

[jwarren]

Thanks Coldwater.....I'm looking at Royalex boats under 75 lbs weight that can be handled fairly easily on Little Red, Upper White, Spring, Norfork. I will use it mostly to get me to fishing spots as well and then get out and cast but also want to be able to drift with it some. 50% of time I'll go solo...50% of time with a buddy.

I don't think I want a true flat bottom b/c of low final stability and wider width which makes paddling more difficult. So far I'm interested in Wenonah Heron, Bell Morningstar, Old Town Osprey 155, Novacraft Prospetor, Mohawk Nova...More importantly, I'm interested in real life experiences from those like yourself who are using canoes to fly fish from or move around in the river.

[ColdWaterFshr]

I've only floated the Spring. The others that you mention are tailwaters I believe, and I don't have any experience with canoeing that type of water, and only limited experience with fishing it, so I can't recommend any of the boats you mention over the other. Several friends of mine have Wenonahs and have been very happy with them.

[Wayne SW/MO]

An Old Town Guide 16 is a very stable canoe, and while its slow and on the heavy side, its stable enough to stand in. The Discovery series are generally very stable, but not as stable as the Guide. You'll have a hard time filling an order of fast, light and stable though.

Most any kayak or canoe can be flyfished from, if the rod is long enough and you have reasonable balance..

[Al Agnew]

Not very many people have used a canoe more for fishing than I have.

Some thoughts as to your "requirements". Most people think they want a "stable" canoe for fishing. However, as you apparently know, there is initial stability, which is how stable the canoe FEELS, and final stability, which is how hard it is to actually tip over. They are two different things, and a canoe with good initial stability (wide, flat bottomed) often has worse final stability--once you get it up on its side, it rolls over like a log. As Wayne said, you can flyfish from about any canoe, but as Coldwaterfisher said, flyfishing from any canoe isn't all that easy. Standing in just about any canoe that you'd want to paddle very far is usually not easy, nor probably a good thing to do in cold tailwater streams in all but the hottest part of the year.

So...considering that you probably don't want to stand in your canoe, that you will be using it a lot on tailwaters to get you to the next spot to fish, and that tailwaters are pretty much wide open and don't really REQUIRE maneuverability, you might want to change your parameters a bit. In my opinion, what you really want is a canoe that will get you down, and even UP, the river with a minimum of effort. So I'm going to throw out a suggestion for you. I've been floating and fishing from the Old Town Penobscot 16 for many years now. In my opinion, it's the best-paddling Royalex canoe on the market. It feels a bit tippy for the novice and when you first get in one, but it has excellent final stability, and it will paddle on a straight line and get somewhere fast when you want it to. I don't do much flyfishing from the canoe, but I have done it with no problems, and I can certainly use baitcasting and spinning gear with ease from it.

In my opinion, "maneuverability" is a highly over-rated feature for Ozark streams, especially the larger streams. You would want a maneuverable canoe for creeks up to the size of, say, the upper Jacks Fork or the Current below Montauk, or for something like the upper end of the Buffalo, but I MUCH prefer a canoe that will track well and go fast for anything bigger that you'll find in the Ozarks. The other good feature of a good tracking canoe is that the same characteristics that make it slide through the water with a minimum of effort and stay straight also make the current slide by it if you're holding it parallel to the current in fast water, or trying to go upstream a bit to re-fish some good water or reach that spot that's a mile or so ABOVE the access. In good-tracking, fast Royalex canoes, just about everybody agrees that the Penobscot is tops. And it's not that you CAN'T turn it...once you get used to it, you'll find it to be plenty maneuverable enough.

[timsfly]

Check out he buffalo canoes, I have one in the 10' solo and it only weighs like 38lbs, it is made of the roylex material.

It has been a good canoe.

I have been using canoes for over 30 years and I haven't found many places where a motor was needed. We used to float flat creek 10-12 times a year, and I have floated kings river more times than I can recall, I have had a lot of canoes over the years, but all were good, I would shy away from aluminum, they are noisy. I have always liked the fiberglass or the new royalex type canoes.

I have a 12' hobie cat Kayak that I enjoy also, during warmer weather.

Here is the buffalo web page. http://www.buffalocanoes.com/

I bought mine in springfield at Dynamic Earth, on fremont just south of battlefield road. Going south it is on the left hand side of the road. Great people there, they seem to be well informed.

[Danimal]

Old Town Tripper-- I'm on my second one (took me 20 years to finally wear out the first one). They handle better than many smaller designs and they'll carry 1100 pounds. Great for float-camping. Dan-o

[Al Agnew]

Just a few comments on the other suggestions...don't mean to be critical, guys, but I've paddled a lot of DIFFERENT canoes over the years, so I can compare designs.

Buffalo canoes--the 16 ft. tandem has two drawbacks. One, it's heavy for a 16 ft. Royalex...the Penobscot that I suggested weighs 58 pounds in the 16 ft. length, the Buffalo 16 ft. weighs 72 pounds. Not bad, but not as good. The other drawback is the height of the ends. 25 inches is high...I think the Penobscot is something like 18 inches on the ends. High ends catch wind worse, and get in your way if you are fishing from one and making sidearm casts (to get under the wind).

The OT Tripper is a high volume canoe...if you plan on doing a lot of canoe camping it's a great choice. But compared to the Penobscot it's a barge to paddle.

But...fact is that a lot of canoes from good companies like Old Town, Wenonah, or Bell will serve your purposes very well. And canoe design is always a trade-off. There simply isn't one perfect canoe. You have to decide what your predominant usage will be, and pick a design that will fit that usage the best, knowing that for other uses it won't be very good. Plan on soloing in your canoe occasionally? There is NOT a canoe out there that is great for both tandem and solo use, although a lot of them will be serviceable solo. Plan on using a motor most of the time? Any canoe that does very well with a motor probably WON'T do very well when you DON'T use a motor. Plan on using your canoe occasionally on small, twisty creeks? The design that does best in bigger waters won't do very well on the creeks.

The ideal thing is to test-paddle any canoe you're interested in. Unfortunately, that isn't an option with many canoe dealers, anymore.

[jdmidwest]

After using canoes for lots of years, I have found Kayaks the way to go as far as portability, speed, stability, ease of use.

That said, I have fished streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and duck hunted out of a Grumman 17' alum canoe and an Alumacraft 17' square stern alum canoe. Both have done well. The square stern and a 5hp motor make a great trolling rig on the 11 pt river. Alum is noisy and sticks to rocks when it hits them but they last forever.

The new composites are great. If you want to paddle different models, contact float camps along rivers and float the different brands. Most use old town or buffalo. Some even sell them as a dealer new or used after a few seasons. My Grumman was purchased for $75 in Alton back in the 80's after several seasons on the 11pt. It is still functional today and the best way for two people to fish a river. On tailwater streams while generation is going on, I will stick to a kayak or other craft that handles fast water better.