Hey Jim, I used to have (it was stolen) an inflatable pontoon style boat that I would float fish with. I noticed that the rubber raft rentals were slow and cumbersome. There are a lot of rocks in most of the rivers that I fish and I find that the plastic canoes glide over them while the aluminum seem to grab the rock like a set of brakes. I've seen many aluminum canoes caught on rocks and spun around dumping all the contents. Sometimes they swamp, turn upside down and are held to the bottom by the current. It then gets very hard to retreive your boat with tons of force holding your boat. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> I would never consider a fiberglass or cedar strip canoe in such waters, although they would be great on lakes and deeper rivers.