Help! My canoe is to fast.

[Gavin]

Used to run a drag chain off the back of my canoes. You will want a 2x2 and an anchor lift and lock. Run it off the stern. Make a little bracket to brace it inside the gunwhales and bolt it to the aft carry handle. Have not used one in years. 3' of chain doubled over, & duct taped & 25-30' of rope. Still thinking learning curve. Back paddle a bit and set your shot before you cast. Might take it off your hands if you really don't like it.

[Harps]

JMO, but dragging anything behind a canoe in a river, or even a lake (unless known to be clear of underwater trees, rocks, etc.) is asking for something unpleasant to happen. And has been stated, it can happen very quickly. I find canoes poor vessels to fish out of compared to some other types of boats, but I'm often fly fishing which makes things even more difficult. Canoes are OK for slack-water or frog-water, but even then the slightest breeze can mess up a cast or retrieve. If I'm running a river in a canoe, I just accept that there are waters that I will have to pass over or not bother with. If I want to fish a spot and it's wadeable, I just pull over and get out to fish.

I'm also not a big fan of drag chains on rivers during spawning seasons as you sometimes are dragging through a spawning bed.

[Al Agnew]

Funny...I don't have any trouble fishing everywhere I want to fish in just about any river I want to fish in a canoe.  The only thing that bothers me is wind.

I still don't get the original post.  A "fast" canoe moves through the slack water quicker and with better tracking.  Which also means that as long as you keep it parallel to the current, it is easier for the current to slide by it and you can slow it down better with various paddle strokes.  If you are having trouble with the current pushing the canoe too fast, you slow it down with those paddle strokes.  The mistakes most people make with canoes is in letting them get too far out of line before you try to correct them.  In other words, you're drifting down the river, casting.  The canoe catches a bit of an eddy and starts to turn.  As it does, the current starts hitting the side of the canoe and moving it faster downstream.  But you're casting, so you don't want to pick up the paddle and make a correction stroke before you get that next cast in.  By the time you fish out that cast, the canoe is sideways and it takes several strokes to get it back in line, wasting a lot of time and passing up good water.  But if you make that correction stroke (I do it one-handed) as soon as the canoe just starts to get out of line, it only takes one stroke and you're back in business fishing.

Another trick is to look ahead and read the current and casting targets.  Plan ahead.  See that really good spot in fast water that you want to make two or three casts to?  Look for what the current is going to be doing to you when you get there.  You need to slow the canoe down with a few good backstrokes before you reach that point.  Or maybe you can see an eddy you can slide into that will hold you while to make the casts.  Or there's a water willow bed where you can just let the canoe slip up onto the bed to stop you within good casting distance.  Or a rock or log you can ease up to and put your foot out on to stop the canoe for a couple casts.  Or just some shallow water you can hold yourself in with a foot out.  Or a current line that's within casting distance but is slower.  I don't miss many spots because I see them ahead of time and plan the best way to fish them.

All this has become automatic for me over the years, to where I seldom even think about it, just see it and do it.  But it is a learning curve for the canoe angler.  The beginner will miss a lot of spots and mess up others.  But it will come with practice.

[tjm]

I'm not nearly that accomplished, I need both hands to fish. Well, actually, I need both hands to paddle, too.  Hate fishing out of a boat, boat is just transport to a guy like me, beach it, anchor it or tie to a tree or get out and fish.  Anyhow learning curve has been mentioned and knowing how to read and use the water also, but, if I don't know what I don't know; how can I learn?

basic strokes; http://www.nfb.ca/film/path_of_the_paddle_solo_basic/

https://www.thoughtco.com/most-important-canoe-strokes-to-learn-2555958

not fishing water or even nice floating but he demonstrates how to read water and use the eddies;  https://www.nfb.ca/film/path_of_the_paddle_solo_whitewater/

other canoe stuff; https://www.nfb.ca/subjects/sports-and-leisure-water-sports/canoeing-and-rafting/

No matter what else, unless you are paddling (Or wind is blowing downstream)the canoe can only go at the same speed as the water or slower. If it seems faster than your kayak it has to do with surface area, you did mention the yak is narrow and I suspect it has to be paddled just make current speed.

[moguy1973]

Al Agnew posted this up a few years back about how to Ferry a boat too.  Really good info in this one:

 

[Al Agnew]

Wow, a blast from the past...and in reading the whole thread, I noticed I didn't answer the final question about ferrying with two people in a tandem canoe.  Exact same technique, the stern paddler, who should be the one who knows what he's doing, does all the setting of the angle and does most of his backpaddling on the left side in the case of my illustration, the bow paddler just adds a few straight backstrokes on the opposite side.  A halfway decent stern paddler can pretty much do it all himself while the bow paddler is fishing.

There's a difference in some of the other things you can do with another paddler in a tandem compared to the solo paddler.  But most can be done with some coordination.  I get through a lot of those curving riffles with draw strokes in the solo canoe, just keeping the canoe more or less parallel to the current and drawing myself away from the outside or the obstacle.  Two can do it in a tandem as long as both are on the same page, the bow paddler doing nothing but draw strokes, the stern paddler doing draw strokes in combination with any other stroke that keeps the canoe parallel to the current.

A lot of strokes are just common sense once you stop thinking about them too much.  You stick the paddle in the water and the stroke pushes or pulls the canoe in the direction you want it to go.  A power stroke pulls the canoe forward and wants to curve it slightly in the opposite direction.  The straighter the power stroke, the straighter the canoe goes, so if you keep the paddle as vertical as possible in the water as you can, you get the straightest and most powerful stroke.  If the paddle is at an angle to the water surface, you end up with your stroke making a "C", with the beginning of the C pushing the front end to the opposite direction and the end of the C pulling the back end in to the same side as your stroke, so it turns the canoe a lot more while still going forward.  A power backstroke does the same things in reverse.  A J stroke is a power stroke with the back end of it pushing the back of the canoe in to the opposite side of the stroke.  A draw pulls the canoe sideways, a pry pushes the canoe sideways.  If you're in a tandem, the draw or pry pushes or pulls your end of the canoe sideways but not the other end, so you gotta have the other paddler pushing or pulling in the same direction to move the whole canoe sideways.  If he's doing the same thing you're doing but on the opposite side of the canoe, it turns the canoe on a dime without pushing it downstream any faster.

And if you're in a solo canoe or kayak, you can experiment with other strokes.  One I use a lot, I call a post.  I stick the paddle almost straight down, the whole blade in the water, just a little forward of center, with my wrist turned so that the power face of the blade (the face that is pushing the water on your stroke) is angled about 45 degrees.  I pull the blade hard toward the canoe until it nearly hits the side, just a few inches, then angle it into an ordinary power stroke for the next few inches, and end the stroke with a few more inches with the blade angled outwards.  If I do this with paddle on the left side of the canoe, it turns the canoe to the left, kind of like turning the canoe around a post.  Or I might reach far forward and do a draw stroke, pulling the front end of the canoe toward the paddle instead of pulling the whole canoe that way like a regular draw stroke does, or reach far backward and do the draw, pulling the back end of the canoe that way, thus turning the canoe without moving it forward.  I do this a lot with one hand, just to keep the canoe parallel to the current.  Or do a pry the same ways to turn the canoe in the other direction, again without moving it forward.  And then there's the sculling draw, keeping the paddle in the water and sculling sideways; I can move the canoe sideways a long way in a short time with that one...I usually use it to get the canoe over to the bank where I've snagged my lure.