How to get your Canoe to the Fishing hole

There are many ways to get your canoe to the river. Here are a few of them.

The easiest and cheapest way is to just throw it in the back of a pickup and go. When I first started out thats how I did it. It was either an old truck my dad had or the old work van he had. Many, many days Todd and I would throw my Coleman Scanoe in the back of his van and go hit Jordan lake or the pond we had on the Caswell County Gamelands than had some big monster bream.  Here is a recent trip I did on the Yadkin River with Mookie, Catawba, Fishwhisperer, and  Tread.

The most common way to carry a canoe is on the roof of a car with some sort of roof-rack or foam pads.

Here are the foam pads on a Scout That Jeff uses for one of his canoe transporters.

Another inexpensive way  which I thought was absoutely the best "cheap" way is to make a frame out of 2x4"s and then put the pads under the frame and then a ratchet strap is thrown over the frame and through the window and then tightened so the frame doesn't move. There are eyescrews at the end of each board that serve as a place to tie to and a place where the boat can't slide off.   Then you would tie the front and back of the canoe down to the bumpers or whatever and maybe a strap over the canoe. Steve and I happened upon some fellow fishermen on the Staunton river one day and this is what they had.  I thinks this rack is AWESOME.

They transported 2 canoes to the river on this wood rack. Pretty smart idea.

I ran into a man on the Smith river during the summer of 2013 and he lashed 2 metal pipes to the top of his SUV. He transported 2 yaks tot he river this way.

Another option is to go all out and get an expensive Thule Xsporter Rack like I did when I purchased my GMC pickemup truck.

I always like to have straps or ropes over the top plus the bow and stern tied down but that isn't feasible on my truck so i take two ropes and lash the thwarts to the rack. 

Below is probably the most common system ,  using a yakima or thule style rack.

Or, you could just haul you Canoe like ths guy hauls his boat!!!

Mack