Open Boat

[okieboater]

Doing my part to keep this thread up top of the message board.

I picked up a demo square stern Grumman 17 (spray rails slightly dented) for a couple hundred bucks from the dealer way back in early '70's when I lived in N GA.

May not be the lightest weight canoes, but the darn things are solid as a rock. May not be the best down river or WW canoe, but for a lot of runs, will get the job done with a bit of extra effort. Right now the canoe is on cross bars in the back yard, slightly anodized from the weather but I would take it out anywhere and be confident the boat would hold up. It does have a keel which means on WW you must allow for that on running the shoals.

I even took mine up to Boundary Waters. On portages it took two of us to carry it one at each end. We took our time and had a great trip.

Got a 1.2 air cooled motor and this combo made a heck of a fishing boat which I used it for many years. Great for a couple of us to carry from the road to the many farm ponds in GA my buds and I fished a bunch.

This boat did the Mulberry a lot. When I first moved out here from GA another couple in my shoe keel Grumman with me and Francine in the square stern did the float from Turner Bend down to I40 one weekend. I had the 1.2 motor on the square stern. I would toss the tow rope to my Bud's girl friend and tow them on the flats and we would paddle the shoals. Made for a relaxing float.

One of my GA buds had a square stern. The motor on the square stern did a lot of raft tows from Chatooga across lake Tugalo. We would get the paddle rafts moving, rev up the little motor, break out the cool drinks from the square stern cooler and putt putt slowly across the lake. Awesome not to have to paddle rafts across that lake. We would stack a few kayaks inside the rafts and could tow several rafts.

Out here, We did a lot of White River floats and the square stern was a big gear boat and great for drift fishing down the White. I did not use the motor for this, but a motor might come in handy if the upstream winds were a problem.

My reason for posting is the old Square Stern Grumman 17's make great fishing boats for quiet lake fishing or drift fishing on rivers like the White.

Don't sell these old warhorse canoes short, cheap durable way to do many enjoyable fishing drift boating.

[JamesBradford]

That's a great story, I bought this square stern about ten years ago from an older gentlemen who said he had it for forty years. I've done the lower Buffalo to the White River several times. I am asking 400.00 for boat & motor. Thanks Jim

[Deuce]

Hey, that's not a bad price, and those little Cruise and Carries are neat. I might take you up on that but I already have a Ouachita flat back and little 2.5 Merc in addition to a raft and the tripping canoe I plan to buy this winter. If I bought another flat back I'd have to sleep in it.

[Al Donaldson]

James:

Do you still have the boat?

Thanks!

al