Any freshwater fishers here?

I'm not a much of a fisher myself, but my dad is a life-long freshwater fisherman and the last time I asked him about gear when I was looking into it for my sprouts, he said that when it comes to rods and lures you really (in his opinion at least) can use just about anything. We had a big conversation with it because I assumed that fishing could be pretty expensive but he's all about the least money spent that gets the job done while still lasting you a good while.

He uses Shimano himself generally but he said that he wanted to get something really appropriate for oldest grandchild who was only about seven at the time. He said he wanted something sturdy that'd deal with just about anything that a backwater river could throw at him... And proceeded to buy a $29 Ben Ten rod from Big W 🤣. It's brilliant. Its lasted being bashed around and thrown about by the kid and has lifted many a large trout in with the old man sometimes lending a hand to get it in if the fish was super squirrely.

He also said that lures really don't matter when it comes to price because a fish doesn't know the difference between a 20c lure and a $2 one. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you which lures he uses for which fish, we didn't get that far into the convo despite many bevvies and a really good bbq dinner lol.

If you were to ask him about an appropriate rod from a canoe I'm almost certain he'd recommend a kids/teenager's rod if you're concerned about balance. You can find plenty that don't look like they're for kids but are short enough to give you more leverage from the centre point of your boat. And the nice thing is that if you find that it's not enough you can always upgrade without losing out on the price of the original because offload it to a grandie or friend's kid

Not a massive amount of help from a non-fisher but I guess it might give you somewhere to start. I plan to start fishing a bit more myself in the future. We have outlaws who go fishing both salt and fresh when the mood takes them and I haven't been in years so I reckon it's about time to get in on it.

Yes I do, and living rock throwing distance from a salt water lake and spear throwing distance from the ocean there are plenty of fishing shops here. I just wanted some unbiased experience before subjecting myself to the salesmen. I can’t go to the local expert fishing shop because the owner is also a professional shooter with a thermal optic superiority problem, so I might have spread some rumours about his late night sexual encounters with the deer he culls in the local bush. Bugger.  Pun intended.