Until I inherited my fathers inflatable Achilles, I fished from an old 16 foot cedar canoe. This was never a problem. Very easy to maneuver on a variety of water, although I never took it on the Fraser other than down around Langley (Crescent Island area). I would run up and down the Harrison to the mouth, hunting pinks and chum. I could stand and cast (giving me even better sight lines than a pontoon for spotting fish on marl flats), as the cedar bottom is very wide and flat, making it very stable for a canoe. The cedar is also very light, making solo launching easy, even allowing me to pack it into lake where there is no road access or launch. If alone in the canoe, I sit in the bow facing the stern, this places me more in the center of the canoe making it more manageable in the wind (the bow does not ride up as it does when sitting alone in the stern). I can easily drop and anchor off the back behind me and this points me down wind. I can easily reach the front to drop a second anchor to avoid swinging too much if the wind is changing often. Now I would not recommend running in streams, especially fast ones, in a cedar boat as they cannot take as much punishment as aluminum, but for deeper smoother streams it is very nice and can even run back up the current if you pass a rising fish and want to turn and go back to try for it.
Now my cedar canoe was not an Old Town, it was a true cedar strip canoe (there are no cross form ribs so it used less wood) making is half as light as an Old Town of the same size (my 16 footer was only 43 pounds compared to the 80 pound Old Town cedar and canvas).
Author
Topic: 12' old town canoe (Read 4186 times)