Quote:
Originally Posted by coolpool
http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showt...ighlight=canoe
Here's one post of a few I've put up hunting from a canoe. It's a very rewarding experience and not one to take lightly. Couch potatoes need not apply, lol. A couple of realistic points to ponder:
How are you canoemanship skills? That should decide what type of water you can safely handle with a canoe carrying upwards of 800lbs with two paddlers.
Will you be sharing the water with jet boats? I've met couteous operators and downright a-holes who want to pass you in rapids. Stick to small creeks with lots of beaver dams where they can't go. Your chances of success will improve 100%.
Can you handle roughing it a bit; luckily most hunters can. Moose tip over in the worst places sometimes and you may be camping in less than favourable areas over night. Along with wolves and bears, and other bulls looking for a fight. I've had two encounters with bulls on the river at night which are not fun and create serious pucker factor.
Canoe: unless you can guarantee deep water from start to finsh, the only canoe that can handle the abuse in shallow water is an older Coleman; and I don't mean the ones marked Ram-X. The plastic seems more brittle in those compared to the older stuff. Coleman's don't stick to river rocks like aluminum ones do and are a lot quieter. They handle like bricks in the water but you can load them on dry land and drag them over rocks with out worrying about wrecking them. They also have an aluminum pole running the length of the keel with stiffens them up for added stability. We've had to drag a loaded canoe 800m once due to low water one year. I've only seen us wear out the bottom of one canoe in 20 years of hunting this way.
BTW, this year we got skunked after paddling 80kms over four days. Didn't see anything but wolves and there was little water to be found. That's how it goes!
Good luck and can't wait to see the pics!
|
There is some good stuff in here but I'd just add a couple comments. Jetboats are generally pretty easy to deal with. You can almost always out hike the jetboaters, some of them get off the river a little but usually they stay pretty close. You can also outdistance them due to their massive fuel consumption if you have a long distance between launching areas. It sounds crazy but quite often I am covering a lot more river than the jetboaters I meet.
There are plenty of canoes that will withstand getting chewed on by rocks for many years, the Coleman is simply the cheapest one.
I used to run a lot more distance but these days I usually spend 7-10 days hunting a section of river I can do in 4 days maximum, usually closer to 2. I study the topo maps and pick 4-5 key spots that I think will hold good numbers of animals, with practice and experience this can generally be done with a high degree of success. This year we had 9 days and a section of river that could have been done in 2, I had 4 key areas I wanted to hunt. It could have taken the whole 9 days to thoroughly hunt all these areas but we hit jackpot on the first one. We hunted the first area for 5 days, made a kill, and paddled out on the 6th. If we had not made a kill on the 5th day we would probably have moved downriver to a different spot. You always want to be close enough to the take out that you have time to deal with an animal and get out on time in a worst case scenario.
IMO beyond the basics of running moving water and safety the three most important things on a canoe hunt are as follows.
1, make sure your bushcraft and survival skills are well practiced.
2. Make sure your gear is absolutely waterproof
4. Manage your hunting time effectively, nothing ****es me off more than getting to the end of a trip without an animal and knowing I didn't hunt as hard as I could have.