Oscoda Canoe

[James L]

I picked this boat up this morning from a nice husband and wife about an hour from me:



Here's what I know: I measured it at 15' 10" tip to tip once I got it home, fiberglass construction, in seemingly really good shape. The bottom of the hull looks like it was barely used which matches what the guy said.

It has tractor style seats which I don't love but I'm going to try them before changing anything. It's also missing the end cap on the stern. Not sure what the weight is, but plenty heavy. It seems to have two flotation pods fully glassed in at now and stern.

As far as I can tell, a company named Sawyer made these, and they seem to be based in Michigan. The last three digits of the serial number are 787 so if I go off what I've seen on other forums I might assume this boat was made July 1987. Confusingly the seller had listed it as a 2007 but the guy didn't seem to know much about it as he had bought it from his neighbor. Doesn't really matter but would be interesting to know the official specs.

I'll post some more pics of the inside shortly. If anyone has suggestions for nice ways to attach brush to a canoe, I'm all ears. I'd prefer not to drill into anything if I can help it. All in all, excited to get it cleaned up a little, get some paddles, and test it out!

 

[RM Anderson]

I picked this boat up this morning from a nice husband and wife about an hour from me:

View attachment 73644

Here's what I know: I measured it at 15' 10" tip to tip once I got it home, fiberglass construction, in seemingly really good shape. The bottom of the hull looks like it was barely used which matches what the guy said.

It has tractor style seats which I don't love but I'm going to try them before changing anything. It's also missing the end cap on the stern. Not sure what the weight is, but plenty heavy. It seems to have two flotation pods fully glassed in at now and stern.

As far as I can tell, a company named Sawyer made these, and they seem to be based in Michigan. The last three digits of the serial number are 787 so if I go off what I've seen on other forums I might assume this boat was made July 1987. Confusingly the seller had listed it as a 2007 but the guy didn't seem to know much about it as he had bought it from his neighbor. Doesn't really matter but would be interesting to know the official specs.

I'll post some more pics of the inside shortly. If anyone has suggestions for nice ways to attach brush to a canoe, I'm all ears. I'd prefer not to drill into anything if I can help it. All in all, excited to get it cleaned up a little, get some paddles, and test it out!

James,
Back in the day, Sawyer canoes were held in high esteem. Congratulations on your purchase! As far as brushing your canoe, more information about how you intend to use it would be helpful. By yourself or with a partner? Transport only or to hunt out of? If planning to hunt solo, you could install a center seat and ask your wife to sew a cover with brushing straps that would cover the canoe. Typically snaps are used to hold such a cover in place but a bungee cord sewed into the hem may work. Another more ambitious idea would be to make a permanent deck like member Steve Sanford did with his Sweet Gherkin. If you are simply using the canoe for transport, it is usually sufficient to simply hide it using available vegetation. RM

 

[Mark Belknap]

As far as brushing, I inherited an old grumman square stern canoe made back in the late 60's from my dad. I just use several fast grass matts and sit on the floor on a boat cushion, almost like a layout blind. Coupled with a ghillie suit top, you practically disappear out on the open marsh. I can honestly say that heavily grassed boats and ghillie suits have really allowed us to up our game. Ducks come all the way in and swim around in the decoys when done well.

 

[James L]

James,
Back in the day, Sawyer canoes were held in high esteem. Congratulations on your purchase! As far as brushing your canoe, more information about how you intend to use it would be helpful. By yourself or with a partner? Transport only or to hunt out of? If planning to hunt solo, you could install a center seat and ask your wife to sew a cover with brushing straps that would cover the canoe. Typically snaps are used to hold such a cover in place but a bungee cord sewed into the hem may work. Another more ambitious idea would be to make a permanent deck like member Steve Sanford did with his Sweet Gherkin. If you are simply using the canoe for transport, it is usually sufficient to simply hide it using available vegetation. RM

I think next season my friend and I will mainly use it for float in it and try to jump shoot from it. So I'm thinking a base layer of burlap help with clamps or bungees plus some leaves, branches, etc arranged for a little taller concealment. I'm sure we'll have to experiment, but I definitely like the idea of some brushing straps that can tension around the whole boat.

 

[James L]

As far as brushing, I inherited an old grumman square stern canoe made back in the late 60's from my dad. I just use several fast grass matts and sit on the floor on a boat cushion, almost like a layout blind. Coupled with a ghillie suit top, you practically disappear out on the open marsh. I can honestly say that heavily grassed boats and ghillie suits have really allowed us to up our game. Ducks come all the way in and swim around in the decoys when done well.View attachment 73661

That looks really good, I'd like to try something like this too but I'm just a little ways inland so it would probably be more of a one off trip, or if our float/jump shooting plan doesn't seem to work very well.

 

[James L]

Here's a couple more pictures:

 

[roy brewington]

As a younger man myself and my gunning buddy would float upper ends of my river haunt occasionally. We always took turns up front shooting. Once you got a shot on birds you switched stations. Man in back gently maneuvered canoe using twists and turns in river as approach cover. Narrow river so anything jumping from either side was in gun range. If the opportunity arose on a flush rear paddler would also shoot. Never used any additional camo on canoe but it was painted in drab colors. Done properly its a ball stalking the birds and we shot quite a few ducks that way for several years. Retriever rode in canoe center for sending into river swamp if shot bird landed there. We would take a break about mid morning and slide canoe up into woods, throw out 6 decoys at a likely spot and have a sandwich and coffee.

 

[James L]

As a younger man myself and my gunning buddy would float upper ends of my river haunt occasionally. We always took turns up front shooting. Once you got a shot on birds you switched stations. Man in back gently maneuvered canoe using twists and turns in river as approach cover. Narrow river so anything jumping from either side was in gun range. If the opportunity arose on a flush rear paddler would also shoot. Never used any additional camo on canoe but it was painted in drab colors. Done properly its a ball stalking the birds and we shot quite a few ducks that way for several years. Retriever rode in canoe center for sending into river swamp if shot bird landed there. We would take a break about mid morning and slide canoe up into woods, throw out 6 decoys at a likely spot and have a sandwich and coffee.

That's pretty much exactly what we're hoping to do with this boat! I'll have to see how much this boat shines once I clean off all the dirt that has accumulated. I could see a DIY camo paint job going a long way to break up the solid green.

 

[roy brewington]

That's pretty much exactly what we're hoping to do with this boat! I'll have to see how much this boat shines once I clean off all the dirt that has accumulated. I could see a DIY camo paint job going a long way to break up the solid green.

That's pretty much exactly what we're hoping to do with this boat! I'll have to see how much this boat shines once I clean off all the dirt that has accumulated. I could see a DIY camo paint job going a long way to break up the solid green.

We've just always painted hulls Parkers Hunter Green which is actually more brown then green. Blends in perfect in our wooded back drop river bottom and blends with marsh mud on bayfront. Cover your thwarts with foam pipe wrap and areas adjacent seat where a paddle may hit gunnel. Wooden paddles make less noise than aluminum & plastic.

 

[RM Anderson]

James,
You may actually grow to like the tractor style seats. Yeah, I know they aren't as attractive as a nice cane seat but they are quite comfortable when padded with 1/2" closed cell foam.
RM

 

[roy brewington]

I,ve found the most comfortable canoe seats are the padded ones that have a flip up back secured by webbing straps. Couple straps go under hull canoe seat to secure it. Easily put on and removed for travel or if you car top boat. Always nice to get the tush some padding and really nice to lean back in those seats after a bit of paddling.

 

[James L]

James,
You may actually grow to like the tractor style seats. Yeah, I know they aren't as attractive as a nice cane seat but they are quite comfortable when padded with 1/2" closed cell foam.
RM

I'll certainly give them a chance before I go changing anything. My main thought was that trying to turn sideways would be a bit uncomfortable. Also, if I was to try to paddle the boat solo for some reason it doesn't seem to allow for sitting backwards on the front seat like I've read you can do. But I still have yet to take the boat out unfortunately (been busy and under the weather this week) so we will just have to see how they do!

 

[James L]

Finally got around yesterday to scrubbing off some of the dirt that had accumulated on this boat. Looks a little nicer now.

Still haven't had a chance to take it out yet! Appreciate all the suggestions.

 

[RM Anderson]

Finally got around yesterday to scrubbing off some of the dirt that had accumulated on this boat. Looks a little nicer now.

Still haven't had a chance to take it out yet! Appreciate all the suggestions.

James,
Your Sawyer looks like it was well cared for. About that missing end cap; try calling Wenonah or another company that makes a similar canoe. Alot easier than fabricating your own. RM

 

[James L]

James,
Your Sawyer looks like it was well cared for. About that missing end cap; try calling Wenonah or another company that makes a similar canoe. Alot easier than fabricating your own. RM

Thanks for bringing that up, meant to mention I ordered an end cap from a site I found:

END CAP - ABS

ABS plastic canoe end caps for finishing off the ends of gunwales. These will work on a variety of makes and models. We can not be sure end caps will fit without actually trying them on the boat. However, to get as close as possible, Here are some pointers. 1) Notice in the pictures how...

northwestcanoe.com

We'll see how well it fits, I suspect it will be a little larger than the original but I figured I can live with that or trim it down if needed.

 

[James L]

Figured I would share some updates on this:

Finally got a chance to try the boat out for a short family trip this weekend. Overall a success! Nobody fell out of the boat, cried, learned any new curse words, or anything like that. Boat seemed sound, I did notice a very slight bit of flexing of the sides where the seat attaches but guessing this is normal.

I will have to spend more time in it to fully make up my mind but the tractor seats didn't win me over. Wife said she liked them though so net positive I guess. Kiddo stayed mostly in the middle of the boat, think we'll have to get her something comfy to sit on and that can stay in the center of the boat. That's one of my main issues with the tractor seat is that you have a little less leeway to shift to one side or the other to counterbalance.

We were in a pond that's part of a local park, though technically it does connect to the Tar river via a little canal and we felt confident enough to paddle through a light wind all the way to the river and back. Not a bad boat, I think it will work for some floating hunts.

I've been reading up on canoe strokes as I never learned the first thing about canoes growing up. Someone may find this interesting if you haven't seen it before, there's a set of these films made by the National Film Board of Canada and they are really neat:

Path of the Paddle: Solo Basic

This short film from canoeist Bill Mason illustrates the joy and poetry of paddling solo. All the basic strokes used to control the canoe are rendered with perfect …

www.nfb.ca

Finally, the end cap seemed to work fine. It is not sized exactly to fit this boat but I got one with generally the right shape. I guess I could have used pop rivets to attach it where the old one was riveted on but not having a pop rivet gun, I sawed off the old rivets and globbed on some silicone RTV inside the cap and slid it on. We'll see if it holds!

 

[roy brewington]

Take a look at these on Ebay for fastening down directly on top your existing canoe seat. Strap & buckles run under neath existing seat and connect to bottom frame of these. Great for canoeing and very quickly installed/ for cartopping. Sitbacker Adjustable Canoe Seat with Back Support

 

[Jeff Reardon]

One additional thought, though it will cosmetically muck up what seems to be a nice canoe in good shape. If you want to brush up the canoe, you can add some light to medium bungee cord a few inches below the gunwales. If that's supported with an eyelet or some other hardware every 12-18", you can put bundles of natural cover under the bungee and have them extend over the gunwales. It won't make much different when you are paddling, but if you ever sit in the canoe in or near natural cover, it's surprising how much even pretty sparse grassing breaks up the visibility of the boat. And it you want to screw up that nice gel coat, too, I've used rattlecan matte camo spray paint. (I like the Krylon Fusion, but I'm spraying Royalex canoes so need it to adhere to plastic. Start with a dark base coat of brown or olive, add some small darker splotches of black, and then improvise some stencils to apply some sparse lighter highlights that match your local cover. You can get very artsy with this or spend a lot of money on custom stencils, but you can simply cut stencils of our cereal boxes to good effect. I wouldn't bother with anything but trying to mute the shine if you just plan to jump shoot.

 

[roy brewington]

Figured I would share some updates on this:

Finally got a chance to try the boat out for a short family trip this weekend. Overall a success! Nobody fell out of the boat, cried, learned any new curse words, or anything like that. Boat seemed sound, I did notice a very slight bit of flexing of the sides where the seat attaches but guessing this is normal.

I will have to spend more time in it to fully make up my mind but the tractor seats didn't win me over. Wife said she liked them though so net positive I guess. Kiddo stayed mostly in the middle of the boat, think we'll have to get her something comfy to sit on and that can stay in the center of the boat. That's one of my main issues with the tractor seat is that you have a little less leeway to shift to one side or the other to counterbalance.

We were in a pond that's part of a local park, though technically it does connect to the Tar river via a little canal and we felt confident enough to paddle through a light wind all the way to the river and back. Not a bad boat, I think it will work for some floating hunts.

I've been reading up on canoe strokes as I never learned the first thing about canoes growing up. Someone may find this interesting if you haven't seen it before, there's a set of these films made by the National Film Board of Canada and they are really neat:

Path of the Paddle: Solo Basic

This short film from canoeist Bill Mason illustrates the joy and poetry of paddling solo. All the basic strokes used to control the canoe are rendered with perfect …

www.nfb.ca

Finally, the end cap seemed to work fine. It is not sized exactly to fit this boat but I got one with generally the right shape. I guess I could have used pop rivets to attach it where the old one was riveted on but not having a pop rivet gun, I sawed off the old rivets and globbed on some silicone RTV inside the cap and slid it on. We'll see if it holds!

Harbor freight has cheap pop rivet guns as well as Amazon. Use aluminum pop rivets.