I find marker buoys helpful on big water. Usually in canoe country you can get a decent fix on a spot with the depth finder and by looking around at shoreline features a bit. If you are base camping and planning on really focusing on a particular piece of structure it might come in handy.

Remember, there will be a substantial weight with the buoy. If you are concerned about drifting off the reef after finding it I think a drift sock or an anchor would be better. Both will peg you fairly well to the spot.

I also tend to think the buoy might be better employed in the summer than spring. Fish tend to school a bit more tightly on mid lake reefs during summer and a marker could be helpful to mark "the spot on the spot". In spring they should be spread out a bit more and shallower thus negating the importance of pinpoint presentations (moving water excepted as they will congregate beneath it). Anyway, those are my thoughts......I hope they are helpful.

For us primitive types who resist GPS:

Balloons, string, rocks.  You don't even need to portage the rocks. 

An optional plastic bag to hold the rock and tie the string to is even easier than tying straight to a rock.

Old Salt wrote on Mar 1^st, 2011 at 5:19am:


The rocks also come in handly for chucking at canoe partners who make bad puns. 

A GPS waypoint is a great way to store a record of a fishing spot and return to it time and again. But for actually fishing a specific reef or hole it cannot compare to a marker buoy. The buoy provides a much more tangible visual reference to where the fish actually are. It's just a little easier to relate to when you are casting or trolling. It requires no conceptualization - transferring an image from a tiny screen to a spot on the water. The buoy is there, visible and can be seen by both people in a canoe or even two canoes working a spot.

Old Salt wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2011 at 2:47pm:

This may be connected to the thread about not taking other peoples stuff you find in the woods. I have always wondered if it is an unwritten rule to never take or move someones buoy. But then there is that person who didn't get that memo and steals my one and only buoy!!
I was also thinking about just bringing some bag and rope as a buoy, but if I were paddling along and saw a plastic bag in the water I would pick it up. When I got to the rock at the end of the rope I would figure it out. Would you put it back?