Canoe Hunting for Deer, Antelope, Elk, Moose, Grouse & Geese.

[Elktrack]

Waders are dangerous if you fall and they fill with water, how deep is your deep-water crossing?

Here is what works for me when canoe hunting plus needing to wade around in water too.

Waterproof Insulated dive booties and over them insulated waterproof LL Bean ankle higher canoe shoes. If a crossing is long enough, they will get wet yet still be warm-ish. I keep a roll of TP to dry them out when crossing is done and heavy rag wool socks to replace dive booties.

Next leggings cut from any old lightly insulated wetsuit bought at a tag sale. Cut them high on the hips to attach to a belt. Unlike waders you can take a crap easy. These are much like native American leggings

Wool shorts. Heavy wool under sweater with a thin dive vest over that.
Next, I like a North Face waterproof long anorak with hood. I put an elastic belt around my waist and around
my cuffs, i cut strong wide elastic bands from motorcycle tire tubes.

Lastly, I like a small Jan-sport backpack, and I put things in there first putting them in zip, lock bags with air left in. Dressed like this I can be comfortable in terrible weather.

Last I like a stainless synthetic carbine with a hollow stock

So, you build hip waders?

 

[Mustangs Rule]

So, you build hip waders?

Kinda I guess, A wetsuit fits tight, like a second skin. Just cut off the legs at an angle at the hip. High on the outside, low into your crotch. At the bottom overlap them over your booties. Gonna leak there but your feet with be warm-ish, then change to wool socks when crossed. This is the rig you hunt in.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I do a lot of canoe hunting. Not necessarily out of one but to get to areas I otherwise could not reach. The one below is a ultralight Northstar Northwind Solo great little boat to get in and out of places. I use it for the Boundary waters and lakes. If I am floating down into public land on rivers or anything rough I use my old Mad River Tahoe in Royalex.
I have been able to slip into areas that most motor boats cant go especially in the fall and winter when most lakes are low.
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I drool over the thought of having a Royalex. Are they as good as the rep?

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I do a lot of canoe hunting. Not necessarily out of one but to get to areas I otherwise could not reach. The one below is a ultralight Northstar Northwind Solo great little boat to get in and out of places. I use it for the Boundary waters and lakes. If I am floating down into public land on rivers or anything rough I use my old Mad River Tahoe in Royalex.
I have been able to slip into areas that most motor boats cant go especially in the fall and winter when most lakes are low.
View attachment 390754

Tell me about your bow. I am just getting back to using a bow again. 35 pounds, set up 5 standing bales of hay with targets around my horse pasture. I fast walk it as a course

 

[OleRedbeard]

I drool over the thought of having a Royalex. Are they as good as the rep?

these new HDPE and plastic boats dont hold a candle to the royalex boats. I wish they would allow someone to start making them again with that recipe. I have had several dozen canoes over the years made from everything to fiberglass, wood, aluminum even a canvas one at one time and as far as all purpose goes Royalex gets the trophy. Aluminum is great. I have no complaints in anything with it other than noise.

 

[OleRedbeard]

Tell me about your bow. I am just getting back to using a bow again. 35 pounds, set up 5 standing bales of hay with targets around my horse pasture. I fast walk it as a course

Its a Hoyt Buffalo with 50lb limbs. Great shooting bow very forgiving and easy to adjust.

 

[hank4elk]

I used to hunt Sierra lakes from a canoe. And fish.
Started with an old Gummon. And left the Winona Fisherman with the ex and the cabin.

Not much chance in NM...LOL

 

[Dougfirtree]

I do a lot of canoe hunting. Not necessarily out of one but to get to areas I otherwise could not reach. The one below is a ultralight Northstar Northwind Solo great little boat to get in and out of places. I use it for the Boundary waters and lakes. If I am floating down into public land on rivers or anything rough I use my old Mad River Tahoe in Royalex.
I have been able to slip into areas that most motor boats cant go especially in the fall and winter when most lakes are low.
View attachment 390754

Did you age that deer? I love the wear on his hoofs. If I saw that track, I'd be thinking I was after an older buck, for sure..

 

[Mustangs Rule]

these new HDPE and plastic boats dont hold a candle to the royalex boats. I wish they would allow someone to start making them again with that recipe. I have had several dozen canoes over the years made from everything to fiberglass, wood, aluminum even a canvas one at one time and as far as all purpose goes Royalex gets the trophy. Aluminum is great. I have no complaints in anything with it other than noise.

Noise is a very big deal for a hunting canoe

 

[OleRedbeard]

Did you age that deer? I love the wear on his hoofs. If I saw that track, I'd be thinking I was after an older buck, for sure..

His hooves make him look like a old man but my best guess is around 3.5, Where he lived was pretty much straight up and down and rocky. I think he may have torn himself up pretty good chasing does around that mountain during the rut. I killed a older buck back in there around 5 years ago who looked like he had took a grinder and chisel to his hooves they were tore up so bad. They dont get bothered for the most part back in there but its got to be some tough living. Especially late season.

 

[Greybeard]

I use a plastic canoe to access shallower water than I can get to with my bigger boat for gator.

 

[17remhunter]

I have had little canoes, long canoes, ones made of wood, aluminum, and various synthetic materials.


For much of my life hunting season, meant “canoe season” even in the oddest places.


One year I was hunting a semi desert environment, with this stream maybe 5 to 6 inches deep and 5 or 6 feet wide that drained some high mountains. It was a not a flash flood stream that would shrink in a flash but a stable fall little creek. The stream bed was mostly sandy, easy walking in it with dive socks and my LL Bean canoe shoes.


Pulling this little canoe, loaded with a canvas cabin tent, and all the gear for a luxury week long deer hunting adventure was a breeze. I managed to get several critical miles in past the Wilderness Boundary.

I came out almost a week later with a buck in my canoe, which I never even sat in or paddled.

Sometimes all I need the canoe for is to cross a river that is too deep for me to wade across, with my canoe shoes and leggings I cut out of an old dive suit I bought at a tag sale. Did that many times for antelope.

I look at maps, find places for crossing a lake or some protected wetlands that borders road less public land. Often I find pockets of privacy from other hunters, where game animals hide.


For example, I found one place where an otherwise inaccessible large chunk of USFS land bordered a river for a quarter mile. All around was a huge private ranch.


All this canoe awareness began as a kid on my Grandfather’s dairy farm. Bordering it, was a huge beaver pond/swamp maybe 50 to a 75 yards wide and a ½ a mile long. I used to paddle around it in a old noisy Grumman aluminum canoe with a gun rack for three firearms, a .22, a shotgun, and a rusty Marlin 336 in 35 Remington. I shot grouse, ducks, geese and totally unsuspecting deer in the cedar thickets next to the water's edge.

I have lived in four western states, most always rural and I pay attention to maps and land doing lots of scouting.

Near where I lived in Wyoming decades past, there were some lakes and quiet parts of rivers that directly connected to marshland and small ponds.

Gliding in there quietly in the first light morning mist was great way to have a close-up moose encounter. Without a motor, it is legal to shoot from a canoe

Is good to have a big canoe for moose and if there are two hunters, they should agree that only the front one is shooting.



MR

What an incredible way to hunt super smart Lots of great hunting areas are land locked blocked by private property your a very resourceful guy. I admire that

 

[17remhunter]

I do a lot of canoe hunting. Not necessarily out of one but to get to areas I otherwise could not reach. The one below is a ultralight Northstar Northwind Solo great little boat to get in and out of places. I use it for the Boundary waters and lakes. If I am floating down into public land on rivers or anything rough I use my old Mad River Tahoe in Royalex.
I have been able to slip into areas that most motor boats cant go especially in the fall and winter when most lakes are low.
View attachment 390754

Thats hunting smart!!

 

[JV842]

I do a lot of canoe hunting. Not necessarily out of one but to get to areas I otherwise could not reach. The one below is a ultralight Northstar Northwind Solo great little boat to get in and out of places. I use it for the Boundary waters and lakes. If I am floating down into public land on rivers or anything rough I use my old Mad River Tahoe in Royalex.
I have been able to slip into areas that most motor boats cant go especially in the fall and winter when most lakes are low.
View attachment 390754

Now that is a badass picture!!