Added a Stinger anchor system, rowing setup, and new rod holders.
The Stinger is awesome and works as advertised, this one is good to 5ft of water depth, the universal mount worked will with the canoe, couldnt thrubolt but had enough room for screws. Used some wood wedges to get it level. The company warns not to lower when moving at speed, but I bounced it around pretty good and everything worked quite well, soon as it hit the bottom it stopped the boat on a dime. Pull the line to raise it and your off. Ten times better than an anchor or pole.
I decided to try rowing, it seemed logical that this might be a lot faster and easier way to get where your going. Problem with small canoe like mine is they are narrow, so made an A frame to spread the oarlocks apart beyond the width of the boat. Bought some aluminum Carlise oars with their clamp on plastic oar locks. Decided to go with six footers, which seems about right. Ended up spreading the oarlocks bit further than what you see in the pics after test paddling, you have to get the fore and aft position right as well. The aluminum oars are heavy so if I decide this is the way to go, I will probably look for some carbon fiber ones. Sitting in the Native seat it was very comfy, to go fast I would row with my back to course of direction in the traditional rowing way, but when approaching fish I would row facing the course of direction. Though not as fast, it is fine for approaching and the oars are great for positioning. There is more noise, but I got better with practice.
The oars can be stored by just flipping them up on the thwart, they get in the way a little bit when handling fish but not to bad. You can also leave them in the water and they will just swing fwd along the hull.
The other new thing I added was the Bee Ready rod holder. These are very low profile can be mounted almost any where and will hold when a fish strikes. They are very well made and not expensive. I installed one facing fwd and one facing aft.
Now for the excitement. As I was rowing out I noticed what looked like a moving oyster bed on the flats, as I watched it, I couldnt believe it, but it was a gator? I slowly paddled toward it but this gator was very wary, it would submerg as soon as I got within two hundred yards, swim away underwater and surface again, going as slow and quiet as I could it never lost sight of me and kept the distance with several approaches. Downwind I could smell this thing, it was really rough looking, I knew no one would believe it so here are the pics.
I wasted a bit of time chasing the gator so I was anxious to get fishing, saw lots of movement along the groves, started throwing the Culvita topwater, had a large snook chase it right up to the boat where its dorsal came out of the water ten feet from the boat, did a few more casts and saw a push in the water chasing it, slowed down and BAM this nice little red gave quite a fight
Later saw something really hitting the bait near the groves, threw the Culvita in there and ended up with two jacks on the lure, got them up to the boat and one shook off the lure, boated the other though.
Rowed around some more, the trout were noticably absent. In the end I covered a lot more ground with a lot less fatigue with the rowing setup, but it is more stuff to deal with, so I am going to try it a couple more times before I make the final decision vs. kayak paddle.
I like the stinger...its just too pricy 
