My First Canoe, Old Town Sportsman 119

[Rusty Ole' Bucket]

As some of you guys may know, I'm new to canoes, but not to paddling, I've been kayaking for years, but I'm at a point in my life where kayaks don't work for me anymore. That said, I really don't want to stop paddling and fishing from micro-craft, I enjoy it too much. Enter the humble canoe, the solution to my problem. On my wife's suggestion, I found and purchased a slightly used Old Town Sportsman 119. I read a little about it, and I know it's not the best solo boat out there, but it was in budget and only an hour away so I went for it.

I used some of my kayak stuff to rig it out for the initial lake run and figured I assess everything and make changes from there. Here's the initial rigging.

First she got a good bath, then a rub down with 303 Protectant. (Please excuse my sweat on everything, it was 90° and about 60% humidity. )

Next I dropped in my fishing box from my kayak.


I added a 1/4" Amsteel stern line with a slip ring.


Continued in the next post...

Rusty

 

[Rusty Ole' Bucket]

I added 1/4" Amsteel bow line with a float. I also added my GoPro on the front thwart rail.



The box dropped in pretty good.



I have a few things I definitely want to do to it after the initial paddle.

First I want to change the seat. The stock seat is comfortable for an hour or so, then it VERY not. It locks your hips into position and won't let you shift at all. I'm eyeing an Ed's Canoe set up or probably do something custom myself. I spend all day/night in my boat at times, it has to be comfortable.

I want to lace the boat. My stuff was sliding around all over the place this weekend every time I'd catch a boat wake. I'm use to my stuff being lashed down on my kayak. I'll probably never need float bags, but I'll be camping and fishing all the time in it and I'll need to secure my gear.

I'm going to add a removable thwart with an accessory rail closer to me. The one that's on there is too far forward to be really useful. It'll probably get the camera and possibly a transducer arm if I decide to add a fish finder.

I think that's about it for now, I'm sure the plan with change and alter as I go, but that's it for now. I'll document all my changes in this thread.

Rusty