Looking To Buy A Canoe

[Justin Spencer]

You had me excited with a local product you said was 40% the cost of these other boats. On two brothers website it said their boat was $950 which is higher in price or about the same as the others similar boats. These other manufacturers might have some boats that are 40% higher, but they are not the same materials, high density poly boats by old town and we-no-nah are more in the $700 range whereas the royalex may be a little higher. Glad to know there are some other local companies around, but a little out of most peoples price range.

[Al Agnew]

Choosing the "perfect" canoe for you is never easy because no one design is the best answer for everybody. Everything is a compromise. At the same time, there are many canoes that will serve the purpose fairly well. I've spent a LOT of time paddling and fishing Ozark rivers, and have paddled a lot of different canoes. Here are my thoughts on various widely available canoes:

Old Town Royalex Penobscot 16

My personal favorite tandem canoe by far. Royalex is the best material for a fishing canoe because it is durable, quiet, slick (slides over logs and rocks without sticking), comfortable in weather extremes, and reasonably light in weight. The Penobscot is the fastest, best-tracking Royalex canoe on the market. Canoe designs are always compromises between tracking/speed and maneuverability, and the Penobscot leans a bit toward tracking at the expense of maneuvering, but on all but the small, narrow, twisty creeks, I don't think you need extreme maneuverability, and I want to be able to paddle easily through long, dead pools--and sometimes I need to paddle the last couple of miles of a float in a hurry or get there after dark! Plus, the same characteristics that make a canoe track well and slip through the water easily also make it easier to slow or stop the canoe in current in order to fish.

The Penobscot, being a narrow canoe for its length with a slightly rounded bottom, will feel tippy to those not used to it. It is not a canoe that you can stand up and fish in. But the straight, relatively high sides make it resistant to actually flipping. And the narrowness makes it easier to paddle solo from a position near the center of the canoe. In most tandems, as long as the seats and thwart placement allow it, you can solo by turning the canoe around and paddling from what was the front seat, but that still requires adding weight to the "front" of the canoe to trim it as level as possible. I much prefer to paddle from a position near the center of the canoe. If a canoe is too wide, you can't paddle efficiently from the center position.

There is also a 17 ft. Penobscot. It's heavier, but it paddles just as well and holds more gear (and heavier paddlers).

Old Town Camper

16 feet, 59 pounds, Royalex. It's a wider, slower canoe than the Penobscot, and has higher ends, which makes the wind affect it more. Not as good for soloing from the center, but a very good canoe that leans a little more toward maneuverability. There is also a 15 ft. Camper, but I'd recommend the longer version. In a tandem canoe, 16 or 17 feet is usually better for two reasons. One, a shorter canoe makes hooking some portion of your partner's anatomy while casting a little more likely. Two, longer canoes offer more options for stowing extra fishing rods.

Wenonah Spirit II

17 feet, 69 pounds in Royalex. It's a big, wide canoe that paddles very well and a great compromise between speed and maneuverability. Not as good for solo use, but certainly doable. Holds plenty of gear and is a nice craft to fish from, having pretty good stability both initial and final.

Mohawk Nova 16

16 feet, 65 pounds in Royalex. The Royalite is cheaper and lighter but not nearly as durable. A sweet-paddling canoe that tracks well and is pretty fast, but maneuvers fairly well also. Wide but solos pretty well. Mohawks are a little cheaper than some of the other Royalex canoes.

Old Town Discovery 158 and 169

These are the poly plastic Old Towns, 16 and 17 foot versions. The 16 (158) weighs in at 80 pounds, the 169 at 85. They are what I'd call vanilla designs that do everything okay and nothing really well, but are good fishing craft. The poly material has all the advantages of Royalex except that it's heavier. If you use a lot of difficult accesses or you're cartopping and can't handle heavy weights, the greater weight will be a definite drawback. But they are cheaper than Royalex canoes.

Old Town Osprey

A short 14 foot, very wide, 57 pound Royalex canoe. You may find short canoes to be easier to paddle solo, and if you do a lot of smaller creeks the short canoe can be helpful in getting through narrow, brushy riffles. I've already mentioned the drawbacks to short canoes. But this one is one you can stand in to fish if you have decent balance. Pretty much requires soloing from the front seat turned backwards.

More on other models tomorrow...

[ColdWaterFshr]

Don't listen to Al. He used to know a lot about canoes, but having since moved over to the dark side (jet boats), you just can't trust him anymore.

I've got a couple canoes and love them both dearly.

My Old Town 158 has been a great boat for the 20 years I've had it. Still going strong. kind've an oxblood. I swear it has the power to heal itself. I replaced the plastic molded bow seat with a nylon webbed seat (and left out the spacers), and I can sit very comfortably solo in it. So I sit up a couple inches higher than I should, which I like because it isn't so hard on my knees, but the sheer weight of this boat makes it very stable to begin with. Great fishing boat and 2-3 day float trip boat, and a decent weekend tandemn camping boat.

My 2nd boat is a Dagger Reflection 15 (royalex) and my newest pride and joy. Bought it used off Sparkleminnow, but I don't think he ever had it on the water more than a half-dozen times. Has beautiful wooden gunwales and decks which the chicks really seem to respond to. Cuts through the water like a greased diamond. Dagger is now out of the canoe business and I think Mad River is now making the Reflection hull design. Good boat, very light and responsive, but at only 15 feet its more of a day-trip boat, or couple nights on the river w/ gear for 1 at most.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I second the Penobscot. Its only drawback is probably getting use to the stability, not that its doesn't have it, but where it is. I don't believe you'll ever look back once you're used to it.

One more that hasn't been mentioned is the 147 Guide. It a little heavy, but it doesn't do too bad solo and its doable with someone in the front. I mention it because it might be one that would do the job solo and still be able to handle an occasional passenger. It wouldn't be that bad on our Ozark streams, which are pretty mild as flowing water goes. It's stable enough to stand in, cautiously.

[chub minnow]

I love my Mad River Explorer 16'. They come in 3 ply poly or Royalex. The rail system allows you to add storage or float bags for solo trips, but can also hold a lot (800lbs +) of weight if two of you are camping. The hull has a slight V that helps it to track but isn't as obtrusive as an actual keel in shallow water. I can clear anything a similarly loaded Buffalo or Old Town 16' can. They weigh in around 70-75# depending on how it's equipped, and the yoke on mine is so perfectly balanced it feels like even less. I always load and unload by myself, even if I have help because it's almost easier and always turns out better. (I learned this lesson when the wife was pregnant)

At any rate, this is a really stable boat that I will often fish out of it standing, including fly fishing. I can drag it up a bank and throw it on the truck by myself- no problem. I know that you can get a 2nd in the triple ply for under $700.00 locally. Lighter than an Old Town Discovery, heavier than a Buffalo Royalex. The webbed seats are a nice improvement over Old Town as well (Wow those things get hot!). Capable of handling class II+ rapids without excessive swamping (depending on the captain). I love fishing out of it and would recommend it for most situations in this area.

[Al Agnew]

More canoe possibilities...

Wenonah Fisherman and Kingfisher

Two wide "angler" canoes. The Fisherman is somewhat comparable to the OT Osprey, 14 feet and 59 pounds in Royalex. The Kingfisher is 16 feet and 68 pounds. The biggest problem with these canoes is that they are too wide to paddle easily from a center position solo, and they are asymmetrical, so they don't work very well turning them around and paddling from the front seat.

Wenonah Heron and Aurora

Two "downsized" Spirit IIs. The Heron is 15 feet and 58 pounds, moderate width, flattish bottom, marketed as a canoe for the casual paddler. It would be an okay design for angling. The Aurora is 16 feet and 67 pounds. Of the two, I think I'd prefer the Aurora. Like other Wenonah models, they are asymmetrical.

Mad River Explorer 16 foot

72 pounds. It's a nice design that would paddle well and track well. The only thing I have against Mad River canoes is the shallow V bottom. The problem I see with it is that the apex of the V will catch most of the wear you get dragging over shallow riffles. With shallow arch bottom canoes, the wear is spread around a little more. Also, in recent years Mad River's reputation for well-built, durable canoes has suffered a bit. Take that for what it's worth.

Some comments on the other canoes that have been mentioned here...

Two Brothers Arkoda

16 feet, 72 pounds. Two Brothers has gone for sturdiness, and it shows in the greater weight of their Royalex canoes. Other than the weight, the only question I have with the Arkoda is that it has a lot of rocker. I haven't paddled one, but I would suspect that with four inches of rocker it would maneuver extremely well and track rather poorly. I can see this as a great canoe for some of the smaller Arkansas streams with sharper drops and rock gardens, but not as good a design for the larger Missouri rivers.

The Brightwater, at a little over 14 feet, would be a pretty low volume canoe for serious tandem use, it would seem to me.

Buffalo 16 foot

Like Two Brothers, Buffalo uses a heavier Royalex and goes for sturdiness. The 16 footer has less rocker than the Arkoda, but has very high ends that are real wind catchers. That would be my only real quibble with the design.

Coleman Scanoe

I was unable to find the weight of this barge, but I've helped lift and load it a number of times and it isn't a one man job. If your style of float fishing is putting in on larger streams at developed accesses and not floating more than 5 or 6 miles a day, taking your sweet time...or if you're planning on using a trolling motor, it's the canoe type craft for you. But I wouldn't want to have to solo one, and I wouldn't want to paddle it very far for very long. It simply isn't a real good all purpose craft. And the plastic that Coleman and Pelican uses is heavy, flimsy (hence the need for internal aluminum braces--otherwise the hull would flex all over the place), and very difficult to repair. But lots of anglers use Scanoes and like them just fine. And the price is right.

A mention for aluminum canoes...aluminum is still the most durable material...an aluminum canoe will probably outlive you unless you wrap it around a rock or drop it off the vehicle at 70 mph. Aluminum canoes are very vanilla designs that do nothing really well, and aluminum is noisy and very sticky and will burn you or freeze you. But a whole lot of people have used aluminum canoes all their lives with no real complaints.

So on the whole, you have to answer for yourself how much money you want to spend, how important initial stability is to you, whether you will use the canoe more tandem or solo, what kind of streams you'll most often use it on, how much weight you want to lift, how you'll transport it, and probably a bunch of other questions, all of which will have a bearing on which canoe will fit you best.

[bobber]

canoes are like people they come in all sizes . some work well some don't work at all! and a deal is only a deal if it works for you! i would suggest you take your gear and get out and paddle a few to see for yourself what feels good to you. but AL, is right on the money, in his reporting.i work with rentals with "buffalo river canoe" @ floatthebuffalo.com we see more old towns and buffalo canoe than any other brands. but more important is your abilities to adjust to the canoe that your in, again some feel great, others feel very tippy. some paddle like sports cars, and some just feel like a tank. and it's better to walk away from canoe that isn't right for you, with only putting out $45 rather than a $500 to $1700 mistake ... if you go more than 10 times a year a canoe will pay for it's self in a season or two. if you only go 3 times a year keep renting your dollars ahead!! almost all rental outfitter like us have used canoes to off load to make room for the new ones coming in to keep our rental fleet in top shape so thats a starting place for the shopping a deal. and never buy one with out a test paddling first.... but that's just my 2 cents.

[BredMan]

canoes are like people they come in all sizes . some work well some don't work at all! and a deal is only a deal if it works for you! i would suggest you take your gear and get out and paddle a few to see for yourself what feels good to you. but AL, is right on the money, in his reporting.i work with rentals with "buffalo river canoe" @ floatthebuffalo.com we see more old towns and buffalo canoe than any other brands. but more important is your abilities to adjust to the canoe that your in, again some feel great, others feel very tippy. some paddle like sports cars, and some just feel like a tank. and it's better to walk away from canoe that isn't right for you, with only putting out $45 rather than a $500 to $1700 mistake ... if you go more than 10 times a year a canoe will pay for it's self in a season or two. if you only go 3 times a year keep renting your dollars ahead!! almost all rental outfitter like us have used canoes to off load to make room for the new ones coming in to keep our rental fleet in top shape so thats a starting place for the shopping a deal. and never buy one with out a test paddling first.... but that's just my 2 cents.

Thanks to all. I really appreciate everyone's "two-cents" on this subject. It certainly is much more information than I ever expected. I did not realize there was so much to a canoe. The reports from 'Al Agnew' are very impressive and informative as is the advice from everyone. I definitely realize now that the smart thing to do would be to try some different models first before making a compulsive purchase.

[RSBreth]

Yep, kind of like a car, it pays to test drive!

[ColdWaterFshr]

While I love canoe ownership, there are some hidden costs that Bobber kind've alluded to with his rental vs. owning.

Hauling a canoe:

In 20 years of owning canoes, I think Yakima almost has more of my money than the total purchases of canoes. Unless you drive the same car for 20 years. I've had to get different towers, clips, lengths of bars, replace lost or worn out straps, and other miscellaneous odds and ends -- seems like fairly often. Got 2 sets of racks, one for each vehicle. And 5 different vehicles over the last 15-20 years, it adds up. MPG drops way down with 2 boats on top, too. Drive 2-3 hours just to get to your favorite river and back -- that 24 mpg you used to get on hwy, just became 15.

Shuttling cars:

Wouldn't mind it so much but for the TIME it eats out of your trip. I've only paid outfitters a handful of times for doing this chore for me, and depending on who, they charge almost as much as renting a canoe.

I can safely say that I am dollars well ahead by purchasing vs renting, but Bobber makes a good point if you only plan to float 2-3 times a year, might think again.