I'm not ready for a trolling motor just yet but I am thinking about getting a kayak paddle.

Around hear in the saltwater & brackish streams we have mullet which are bottom feeders that nevertheless like to jump a lot. When my oldest son was small he was afraid of sharks & gators so didn't care much for his dad's canoe. On one of the rare occasions when I had him and my daughter (around ages 6 and 7 at the time) with me on a creek near home the mullet were really jumping and one jumped right in the canoe behind the kids and started flopping around. Talk about some scared kids 'til they realized it was just a fish and not a predator attcking.