Learning pole?

This is a Home Depot pole project, Hemlock i believe and im heading into this open minded and willing to “up-grade” my equipment if poling becomes a thing for me.
All i’ve really done was copy a lot of what i see on here, tapered a 13ft. pole from 1.5 down to 1.3 with an electric hand plane before sanding and coloring the shaft. The red section is 4 ft; or the distance i would not feel comfortable stepping out of the Canoe AND expecting a good result! Just a reference i guess?
The pole shoe was just something i put together from left-overs. Once the color’s dry i’ll go over the whole thing with either wood hardener or watered down (acetone) epoxy trying to give it a tougher outer shell, before Varnishing.

All I need now is water! My “learning pole” will be complete when the varnish dries. I’ve upgraded the Home Depot rod and am eager to see what comes of this adventure. The red section is 4 ft long and has a glass sleeve. The carbon section is 6 ft long and sports a “uni” sleeve. I’m just learning about Uni-directional carbon and find it more difficult to work with than knit fabrics.
On the top end I added a bronze bushing and wrapped the pole end with carbon tow and on the other end, smoothed out my tip section some.

It looks like you have a nice pole there. What's it weigh?

You calling it a "learning pole" makes it sound like you might be new to poling. One can figure it out, but sometimes pointers are handy--like Harry Rock's "Canoe Poling," or his video "canoe Poling with Harry Rock." If you'd like I can pass on my copies. If you want them you'll have to contact me with your address.

Many polers engage the bottom with both ends of the pole, as you'll see in Rock's tutorials. I use both ends when the weather is warm, but if it's cold I try to keep one end of the pole dry. So, it can be done both ways. Looks like your intending to use just one end on the bottom. The first pole I ever used was about ten feet and had a heavy iron foot on one end. What I liked about that was it got to the bottom in a hurry when the pole was dropped. It was heavy, borrowed and was my first time poling, so I didn't know there was any other type of pole.

13' might be a little long. It depends on what's overhead. On woody streams, overhanging tree limbs increase the challenge, kind of like 3D chess. 12' is probably "industry standard". Like there's a standard, lol.

Thanks for the helpful advice @Chip, the pole weighs 5lb even. 13 ft does seem long But i’ve got at least a dozen types of saws! When i ponder potential poling streams im just winging it until i get some experience, knowing there’ll be changes at some point.
Thanks for the book offer as well! At some point i may take you up on that but for a bit i’ll try to parrot some of what i find online.
Folks like yourself make a lot of these sorts of things easier by offering your own experiences. up here i can see a lot of “on occasion” uses in gravely eddies and some soft mud marsh uses. Storing the pole on board will be interesting as well.
Anyway i had a lot of fun with numerous Canoe projects this winter and will be focusing on Garden a while, at least till our water softens up! In very short order, i’ll be picking up the canoe i had built a couple months ago.