My wife wanted me to make a comment here. We have been on over 50 wilderness canoe trip with various canoes. some fast like our Wenonah MinnesotaII, others are more agile like our 16'4" Kevlar Madriver with a lot of rocker and the 'V' haul. My favorite is the Seliga 17. All of these have shallow arc bottoms. To some they would be called tippy, but in wind and waves the game changes and secondary stability is more important than initial stability. A flat bottom canoe will react more to large waves than a shallow arc canoe and thus remain more level. Flat bottom canoes react less to motion within the canoe, while the the shallow arc reacts less to motion of the water. I use the 'V' bottom Madriver for hunting and rivers in Iowa, it has a lot of secondary stability, it will lean so far and then simply stop, plus it has very good glide, considering its pay load and rocker. A canoe is not a flat bottom jon boat, you need to trust it and yourself, let the canoe do its thing and relax and sit up straight. Certainly, flat bottoms have their place with shorter distances and very shallow water, but we have never once dumped and a number of times have scooped people out of the water that were using flat bottom canoes, when a wave caught them by surprise and pitched them over board and then taking their packs and the canoe with them on the way over. I had an Old Town 17" Discovery, yep I fly casted standing and one day I water swatted three ducks from it with my Bear Magnesium takedown, but it weighed over 90 pounds. We have one major rule, the canoe is on full float before we get in or get out. We never ever dry land it when loading and unloading. On canoe trips it is called 'wet footing', when hunting it is called water proof calf high boots. I leave the rubber boots in the canoe when we get to our location and put on the lighter stalking boots while hunting.
The picture above lacks historic accuracy, my ancestors on my one great grandmother's side,Ojibwa, never built canoes with that much rocker. They liked keeping the bow and stern in contact with the water.
Topic: Hunting from a canoe (Read 1993 times)
