Zach Matthews
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Hey Scott –
Very interesting and thanks for following through with the post.
As you all mostly know, I stand to fish in a similar canoe – the Old Towne Guide 14’6″ model. Like Scott’s boat this has two seats. I basically never sit down, though. I have a chain anchor which I mount to the rear with a big caribiner, and then I have an axle and wheels that I’ve posted on here before. I toss those in the front compartment. When I operate the boat I typically stand directly in front of the rear seat. Like Scott I keep my coffee or beer on the central thwart. I’ve actually paddled the entire Chattahoochee from Morgan Falls Dam down past Paces Mill while standing up. It’s plenty comfortable. You can even rotate in place and fish the other way if you get into a slow pirouette in the current.
Since I’ve never fished out of a kayak I can’t comment on that but my general sense is that the canoe does all I want for the moving water I fish. I have poled it for carp before but I prefer my Gheenoe if I’m going to be doing that.
The major disadvantages from my perspective:
Not as fast. Kayakers who you want to fish with will have to consciously slow down to keep from running ahead.
Heavy to load and unload, although there’s a trick a Cajun showed me to deal with that.
More likely to get scarred up. This is something I think you’ll notice, Scott. Because it’s a two-man canoe and you’re handling it alone, you will inevitably be unable to prevent certain impacts you otherwise would be able to avoid with two folks. They’re not life threatening but they will scar up your boat, both on the water and in the parking lot. I advise you to embrace the scars because you can literally hurt yourself trying to keep these boats looking new and it’s not worth it. I view my canoe as semi-disposable. I bought it on Craigslist and will eventually replace it on Craigslist.
You will end up being the pack mule. If you ever do a party float with kayakers all their extra gear will overflow onto you since you have more room.
Harder to maneuver on dry land. This is why I made the break down axles.
Zach
PS Here’s a video:
John –
See my post this morning; there was an issue and I was able to get it resolved. We should have at least comparable speeds to the old board now.
Zach
Randy –
I think most everyone has seen “Running Down the Man.” Have tactics changed since then? It seems to me that eventually the roosters would react to intensive beach fishing pressure and start avoiding the near surf. But there may not be enough anglers to do that.
Zach
Randy –
Great pics, thanks for sharing man. Do you have any information that could shed some light on what I was trying to remember for Justin, above?
Thanks,
ZachSpecifically, our load times were 4.8 seconds from when you guys pushed a button, all caused by a single faulty plug in. That dropped to 0.24 seconds when I identified and disabled said plug in. So it will hopefully be much better now.
Zach
Justin –
There was some noise a while back about closing some of the Baja beaches to fishing, I think down by Cabo San Lucas, because (and I going on memory here) there was some disgruntlement about either licensing or the use of vehicles on the beaches. I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember some rumors about the rooster fishery being closed a few years ago.
Zach
Scott –
I think you’re right that being part of the 3M structure was a big part of SA’s innovation level.
For years I would hassle Tim Pommer about them needing to make their microspheres with helium to lower the specific density of the lines and make them float higher. Turns out microspheres aren’t really made for fly line applications specifically at all – they are sourced from some other random industry that needs them for something else. Helium isn’t needed for that other application–and if it were not for that other need, they wouldn’t exist in the first place.
That’s just one example and there are probably a zillion more.
Zach
It’s a good purchase for Orvis. SA is by far the stronger asset. It will be touch and go to see if they can keep Ross afloat; I hope so.
Zach
Hey John –
It may be slightly slower. We’re querying a database now as opposed to a flat file system. The advantage here is that the board is going to be much more stable and should basically be unhackable going forward. We’re in the main stream in terms of software now instead of using an old jalopy that I kept having to cobble back together.
I will get with my host and see if I can speed up the querying somewhat.
Thanks for the feedback,
ZachJon –
As far as I am aware it is. I think there was some talk about an exclusionary zone but Baja California is a huge place.
Zach
This has been an awesome post, Mike, and we appreciate it.
For some reason there seems to be almost a bias against Yellowstone in that area. Probably because fishing opportunities are so good in places like SW Montana or eastern Idaho. And maybe because you can’t really float large sections of water in the park, and guides don’t make their living hiking 8 miles very often.
Have you ever fished the brown trout spawn in the neck between Shoshone and Lewis Lakes? That looks like quite the undertaking but it would sure be fun to spend a week in there in October.
That’s amazing Michael. And there’s a good chance some high-altitude jet stream anomaly is what is causing us to have rain and you not to have rain at the same time.
The Delaware is known for its dry fly fishing, right?
Zach
Very interesting, Mike. It almost looks like they were walking the water’s edge as the water receded? Would that make any sense?
Great pictures, by the way. The starkness is very appealing.
I like this. Browns and rainbows have proven to outcompete native cutties, and rainbows are doubly bad for hybridizing. I would have no problem whatsoever with Yellowstone initiating policies to wipe out any and all invasive fish species.
It would be one thing if Yellowstone had had no native game fish to begin with–then you can at least have a debate about whether the water is being used versus simply preserved. But cutties are an absolute blast to catch and there really is no reason why there should be anything else in the water. Lakers, rainbows, browns and brookies could all go and the cutties would fill back in so that anglers never even noticed a reduced catch–in fact, cutties being easier to catch as a rule–angling would probably improve.
Mike any idea what this means for the handful of native grayling in places like Cascade Lake?
Thanks Jeff. I’m still going to reduce the size of the header graphics when I get time (the size you see above was the default), but that’s a couple hours’ project and I haven’t had the time. I’m also still trying to re-enable personal messaging, but for the most part we’re about done with the transition.
Zach