4 Tips in Choosing the Right Fishing Canoe

You must be wondering why pick a canoe over the ease and comfort of a kayak when you’re going out fishing.

The thing is, fishing canoes will provide you with a lot more space where you can store your fishing equipment. It does not get simpler than that. Some people might find kayaks more convenient and suitable for their needs than a fishing canoe, but that is all based on personal choices. That being said, there is still the question of choosing the right canoe, which will be based on your specific needs going into the river hunting for fish. Here are 4 tips in choosing the right fishing canoe:

Size Matters

Get your head out of the gutter. Size is the foremost tip among the 4 tips in choosing the right fishing canoe. There are two very popular sizes for fishing canoes: the single and tandem canoes. Each of them have their uses, depending on the kind of fishing trip you’re aiming for and the number of people that are going.

Single Canoe

Some boats tend to be faster than others while there are those that are better to fish out of and some are just easier to store and manage. Kayaks offer an ease of use, they have good speed and are very light weight. Single canoes offer the much needed compromise between a better fishing boat, ease of usage, the storage problem and its weight without losing too much on the speed. Kayaks do not allow you to stand up and engage in fly fishing like you should be able to do. The angle is too inconvenient and there is barely enough space to move freely. Single canoes are great in the sense that they offer you the levee to move around and even stand up when you are in calmer waters and you want to do some good old fly fishing.

Tandem Canoe

It is like a solo canoe, only bigger. A tandem canoe is one which has more seats and be used by two canoeists. There might be a chance that you still want to engage in a solo fishing trip but you want to bring someone along with you (a human, not a K9) or you are someone who frequents the river with a fellow fishing enthusiast. Whatever the case may be, when there is more than one person who needs to get on to a boat for the fishing excursion into the river, you should get a tandem canoe. It offers more space, paddling it is less tricky since there is another person with you and you can easily engage in fly fishing. First time buyers usually end up buying tandem canoes because of their practicality. They move on to the solo canoes when they have a significant experience in canoe fishing.

Deciding on the Length

Again, not a joke. It is a necessary part of the 4 tips in choosing the right fishing canoe. The length of a canoe is an important factor since it determines the speed at which your canoe can travel along the river. When it comes to canoes for fishing, you do not require a lot of speed. The longer the canoe, the higher the speed it can reach since it is more streamlined when it is longer. When choosing a canoe for your fishing trip, solo or tandem, your canoe should only be long enough to accommodate the necessities. A shorter canoe will offer you the right kind of speed which you need to travel while fishing and a more stable platform for your fishing activities.

Material

Among the 4 tips in choosing the right fishing canoe, comes the factor of the material. It is necessary to know what your fishing canoe is made of and how that will affect your fishing excursion. Fishing canoe enthusiasts use carbon fiber or fiberglass canoes very popularly. When it comes to material, there is no such thing as the best kind of material for all fishing canoes. You should only get what you need. Carbon fiber canoes are very light weight which makes transporting them a lot easier but they are very expensive. You should invest in them if you are not someone strapped for cash. If you are not able to make a big investment into your fishing canoe, getting a plastic canoe is not a bad option. It might be heavier than the carbon fiber canoe but it does its job adequately.

The Shape

The last of the 4 tips in choosing the right fishing canoe is the shape. Just like with the length, the shape also affects the speed. Narrow and rounded canoes are faster but what you need for fishing trips is a wide and flat canoe. The wider hull provides you with more storage space and a more stable platform to fish from.