Business hopes float for Pincher Creek angler

CUNNINGHAM OPTIMISTIC WITH NEW BOAT DESIGN

APincher Creek man has designed and built a new fly-fishing boat under his company called Cunningham Boats. Joe Cunningham has been a fly fisherman for 40 years and is originally from Nova Scotia. He’s been in Alberta for about 26 years and has fished in rivers all over the province.

“When I was in Nova Scotia, I used to use a canoe to be able to portage. It was very, sort of Canadian Shield like, on the eastern shore where I used to do my fishing,” says Cunningham.

To be able to fish in the good spots, you had to be able to travel over geography that was half water and half land.

Cunningham has always been familiar with canoes and wanted to continue to use his canoe in Pincher Creek area waterways. He began fishing lakes in the Pincher Creek area and the east Kootenays, but found using the canoe wasn’t a productive way to fish.

The fisherman kept changing items on his canoe such as finding a way to raise the seat up. He began using accessories from a company in Minnesota called Spring Creek outfitters.

Eventually, Cunningham had something that worked well on the waters. It was fast, stable and he could stand up in it.

“It took me about 45 minutes to put the whole thing together, every time I went to the lake,” says Cunningham.

It also weighed about 60 pounds, so he decided he wanted to make the perfect flyfishing boat.

Cunningham has had several small businesses in the past and felt fairly confident about starting another to create this new fishing boat. Thanks to living in Pincher Creek, he feels he has a larger geographical area for marketing purposes.

The business was officially created about a year and a half ago. Cunningham is hopeful his new boat will be on the market at the beginning of the lake fishing season this year.

“We’re sort of trying to gear up to be as ready as we can,” he adds.

Some fishermen already know about this new boat and have shown interest.

The making of the boat is a bit of collaboration between Cunningham and a couple of other businesses.

Cunningham has a mold for the main hull of this boat. The hull is the watertight body of the boat. Hellman Canoes in Nelson, B.C. makes them for Cunningham.

A couple of the parts are from the Spring Creek Outfitters in Minnesota and some are made locally or by Cunningham himself.

As well, a local cabinet maker has been helping Cunningham make some of the parts. The concept is Cunningham’s and the boats are finished in Pincher Creek.

“There’s been a lot of interest as you can imagine and I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, so I did have the prototype that I was able to fish in last year,” he adds.

A fair number of fishermen and friends of Cunningham were able to see the boat last year when he was using it.

Along with the new fishing boat, Cunningham Boats has an online store where people can purchase accessories from Spring Creek Outfitters such as roof racks and canoe carts. Everything can be purchased on the website by contacting Cunningham boats.

This new boat is called the Chironomid and will cost $3,300.

People can check out the boat and Cunningham Boats online at: