Standing In Kayaks And Canoes, And Other Stuff

[grizwilson]

The best product I have found to repair those gouges etc. that Al speaks of is G Flex, if you will get thier news letter Jameston will offer free shiping about once a month.

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=8694&familyName=West+System+G%2FFlex+Liquid+Epoxy+Kits

On the pack I had to move the seat fwd quite a bit to flatten out, per Al's advice, not as far as Al recommended as I keep a fairly large cooler up front. I experimented with some Kevlar cloth rather than felt, for skid plates trying to avoid the handling difference Al speaks of, while functional they are ugly or I would have sold the pack and bought a Wenonah as it would be a better fit for my fat butt.

[OzarkFishman]

Thanks for the info guys. Seems like the royalex model fits my needs. The extra tracking and room is worth the extra 12 pounds compared to the Pack.

Being that I just bought a Mad River 156 Journey canoe and an older 16 foot Lund with a 35 horse, my wife would not be happy if I bought yet another canoe. It will probably be a year before I buy, but it is nice knowing that I have the model picked out so that I can look for sales.

Thanks again guys, your advice is greatly appreciated.

[Gavin]

Oz...that Mad River Journey of yours will probably work OK as a solo canoe...flip it around, trim it out...you will be fine until you can get a dedictated solo canoe.Its not gonna have sports car handling like a solo canoe, but you will have room for more rods & stuff. I routinely solo a 17' tandem canoe with tons of gear in it on winter trips...works great. My solo canoe will run rings around my big green barge...but the big green barge always gets it done at a slower pace.

[Mitch f]

Geez guys, Guess it's about time I bought a solo canoe and learned the proper strokes

[OzarkFishman]

Good point Gavin. I bought the Journey so that I can take my boys canoeing (one at a time, they are 5 and 2). The only problem with the Journey is the weight. It is fine for 2 adults to carry; without the cart I bought it would be brutal for one guy to carry.

Mitch, you really should look at a solo. In my opinion, a kayak is no where near as good of a choice on the streams around here. The comfort and space of a solo are awesome.

[Gavin]

That Journey is a fairy heavy boat..but not that heavy...dont worry about scratching the deck plate or the boat.....prop it on its nose, and get under it and use the carry thwart to balance it on your shoulders....takes a little practice because its more about balance than strength.

[Al Agnew]

They do get heavier as you get older. Used to be that I could throw my old aluminum that weighed probably 75 pounds onto my shoulders in one quick, easy move. Now, I have to get my balance just right and strain a bit to do the same thing to my 58 pound Penobscot. After a day of floating, it's a whole lot easier to do what Gavin said and get it up there in stages.

There's really no comparison in paddling a solo compared to paddling a tandem solo. The solo is fun to paddle; with the tandem paddling is something you do because you have to. And this is especially true while fishing, using one handed strokes.

[Terrierman]

I'm really happy soloing in my Mad River Legend 15. I'm a pretty good sized guy and like the size of the boat. It handles very well. The extra capacity is really nice for overnight trips. We're going Thursday and Friday assuming it doesn't rain much again between now and then.

Totally agree on Royalex as the right material for canoes and also on the durability. Wore through the outer layer of the Legend in about ten trips. Which is no biggie, the Kevlar skid plates (which every royalex canoe needs anyway) took care of that in nothing flat.

[grizwilson]

On 5/27/2013 at 7:15 PM, Al Agnew said:

Wayne mentioned it, but let me explain it in a little more detail.

 

The worst riffles on Ozark streams are those curving riffles with sweeper trees or other obstacles on the outside of the curve. Sweepers are almost always on the outside, because of simple centrifugal force. The current is always fastest and strongest on the outside of a bend, and so it erodes the outside bank, undermining the tree, which eventually collapses into the current.

 

So here you come, believing that you have to forward paddle faster than the current to get past that sweeper. Let's say the riffle bends to the right and so the outside bank with sweeper are on the left. So you're wanting the canoe to move to the right to get around the sweeper, so you're forward paddling hard on the left side. Now, the canoe is turning to the right, for sure. But as it turns, the current begins pushing harder on the right side, actually pushing the canoe to the left. So now your canoe is angled so that the bow is to the right, in the slower current toward the inside of the bend, and the stern is to the left, in the faster current toward the outside. At this point, you're probably screwed, because the canoe is being pushed sideways toward the sweeper, with the stern being pushed harder than the bow so that the canoe continues to turn more and more sideways. If you're really lucky and it's not too strong current on the outside or you started out far enough to the inside of the bend, you end up avoiding the sweeper, but your bow gets stuck in the slowest current on the inside of the bend and the canoe turns completely around as the stronger current keeps hitting the stern. You survived, but you look really stupid, and now you have to get the canoe turned back around facing the right direction, which is a pain at best and dangerous if you're in tight quarters.

 

So here's how to do it right.

 

As you begin to enter the fast water, you want to immediately turn the canoe so that the bow is facing to the LEFT, TOWARD that outside bend and the sweeper. So the first thing you do is make a couple of hard backstrokes on the LEFT. Now the canoe is angled so that the current is hitting it on the left side, and actually pushing the whole canoe away from the left bank and that sweeper. Now just continue to backpaddle, hard, switching sides if necessary but mostly on the left side, to KEEP the canoe at that angle so that the current keeps hitting it on the left side. You want to FEEL that current hitting the left side of the canoe and pushing it to the right. What you'll find is that the canoe is going much slower than the current, with the bow continuing to point to the left, toward that sweeper, but the whole canoe sliding rightward and away from it and also wanting to straighten, since the strongest current is hitting the bow of the canoe. And all the while, you're continuing to backpaddle, dragging that canoe away from the sweeper. Once the bow clears the sweeper, then all it takes is a backstroke or two on the RIGHT to straighten out the canoe, since the current is still wanting to straighten it out anyway. Or alternatively, just start forward stroking on the left if the river is clear downstream, and it will straighten just as quickly. You may actually end up with the stern of the canoe in the slack water on the inside of the bend, and eddy out there, but if so you'll be eddied out facing downstream, and look like you meant to do it! At worst, you hit the sweeper...but you hit it head on, which is always preferable to hitting it sideways. Sideways is a sure flip, head on gives you a bit of time to figure out how to salvage the situation somehow!

 

Do much the same to avoid any mid-stream obstacle. Point the front end of the canoe toward the obstacle with the canoe angled so that the back end is pointing away from it, and backpaddle. Not only does it slow you down and give you more time to work to avoid it, but the current is actually doing a lot of the work for you, pushing on the side of the canoe to move it away from what you don't want to hit. This is the classic ferry, and it's just like what the ferry boats on the rivers did--having the current do the work.

 

And if you want to enter an eddy, it's the same principle. Say you're in fast water, and you want to get into a big eddy to stop to fish. This can be a dangerous proposition if you're in heavy water, because if you try to paddle straight into the eddy, when your bow enters it the bow suddenly stops, but the stern is still in fast water and still moving fast. So the canoe swings violently around, often so violently that it flips, especially if you don't lean the right way. It doesn't even have to be really strong current if the eddy line is sharp and you lean a bit the wrong way. So instead, as you approach the eddy from upstream, angle the canoe so that the stern is pointed to the side where the eddy is, and backpaddle to slow down. You want to time it so the stern hits the eddy line just as you reach the upstream end of the eddy. Then backpaddle hard, and the stern slides into the eddy, with the strong current continuing to push the bow right into the eddy.

Al, is there a name for this move as I might find a video?  Having trouble getting my head around it.  Thanks

g

[Al Agnew]

It's called a back ferry.  You can Google "back ferry canoe" and get a number of videos and other informational sites.  I just looked at a few of them, and none that I saw really show the move as it's done on Ozark streams, but a number of them are pretty good at showing how you move the canoe across stronger current to enter weaker current, without letting the canoe go downstream in the stronger current.  Basically, though, the simplest way to describe it is to angle the BACK of the canoe in the direction you want to go, and backpaddle.  The angle, and maintaining that angle as you backpaddle, is what is most important.