After decades of boating I am thinking of going in a new direction. I no longer need a large family boat and we live on a river. I am considering a square backed canoe as pictured here. http://www.dunhamssports.com/weekly-circular/ to use with my 30lb electric motor and of course, manual propulsion. OPINIONs are requested. Price looks good.

Look for an Old Town Discovery Sport. Damned near indestructible. If you have lotsa $$ and would like something to handle big lakes (winds and big waves), find a real Grand Laker.

Ah, the old Ram X Scanoe. Believe it or not, that's a hell of a boat. I have its 15' regular cousin. Their advantage is they are lighter than hell so easy to pick up and ford over shallows. Makes a tad more unstable unless loaded but its a hell of a weight advantage when doing exploring.

Those have a nice keel to them too. About the only ones that do now are the Old Towns and man they're three times as much as the less expensive ones. Not being RamX (pliable plastic with an aluminum frame), the Old Towns weigh about 113 lbs. That's not easy for one person to hustle about but they are very stable and like the Scanoe about 40" at the beam. That's take a good size cooler in the center.

I do like the double wall hard plastic like the Quest at Gander Mountain. They weigh 95 lbs and have neat seats with a back, but no keel so they rate them only for an electric while the Old Town, like the old Coleman Scanoe, was rated for a 5 hp gas.

Now to be honest, the bolt on transom mounts do every well on a normal canoe. They're like $40 and simply clamp on the back. They can't hold much weight, 3 hp maybe, but definately fine for a trolling motor. What I like about them is the motor is much closer to the seat. Not only are you not turned around all day working the motor tiller, but you can rest your arm on it like an arm rest.

Long hauls, a seat back is almost a must. Those too though are a $40 adder and unniversally strap on most of the seats, especially the Old Town slim style seats. Coleman made snap ons for the Ram X models, You just snapped them on the scanoe.

A Scanoe, small gas motor, 5 gallon gas can, and seat backs, man, you could explore for days on end. Strip all that stuff off and then go take it white water riding, getting it wet turn it over stuff.

BTW, Shotar and advantage of a keel canoe is you can tow it behind a big boat and it holds a straight line. Its worth the extra bucks.

Tj

This may not be exactly what you had in mind, but google "gheenoe". I ran across them when I was looking for a sq stern myself....kind of like a sq stern on steroids......if nothing else I think you'll find this interesting, if you haven't already.


RG

I have a 15' Gheenoe and a 13" knockoff of a Gheenoe (I don't remember the brand). They are better than a canoe for stability, capacity and if you want a motor. They don't paddle as well but are ok. A bit heavier than a canoe but still managable with one person. Mine seem to be of good quality, both are over 20 years old and were beat on for years by us grandkids when they belonged to my grandfather. A small repair or two from rocks and abuse but still going strong, wish I could say the same for the motors.

I have one of these:

Odd Duck

Its a fine canoe, and works well for bass fishing up here because I can get it into really tight spots and shallow crapholes nobody else can. I can stand up easily in this thing, and beaching it is a breeze with the flat nose.

I like this boat because it is rigid. I had a Discovery Sport sq stern, and it was all flexy and rubbery feeling. I didnt like it. Oh helluva boat though... indestructable... just funky because it was plastic.

I learned Current river in Southern Mo running a 19ft grumman square stern with a 6hp johnson. Replaced a lot of sheer pins by the time I was 18

I bought a 15'6" coleman scanoe for my self on christmas. I may buy a 4 stroke suzuki 6 hp out board for it. If not at least a 55 thrust minnkota. I plan to do a lot of fishing this spring summer and fall. Should be fine for me and the missus on the lakes and resivoirs of se virginia.