My wife and I are looking into kayaks mostly for cruising around the creeks, but I’d also like to do some fishing from mine. I dont want to buy one of the huge/heavy fishing kayaks at this point. Ideally would like something I could put on the roof of my SUV and then carry to launch anywhere. I’m not looking to bring tons of gear with me, mostly looking to keep things simple for now.
We are hoping to go to the parks and rec kayak rodeo thing or whatever its called next month. But before then was curious if you had any suggestions of what sort of kayaks we may want to consider.
Not sure what you will find that is light and “carryable” that will also make a good fishing platform. Maybe a kayak cart could be your answer. You can make one to work with any kayak for $20. To have a kayak stable enough and with enough room for gear to fish off, weight is often the trade-off. Maybe you’ll see something new at the Paddling Festival.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
light and easy to carry will be a smallish sit-in kayak or a paddle-board outfitted for fishing. I have both a sit-in and sot. The sit-in is lighter, but you will need to stay in sheltered waters since they can get swamped in large wakes/waves.
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles. ~Doug Larson
'88 Henry 'O Challenger
Malibu X-13
WS Pamlico 120 Angler
Thanks for the posts, I guess I had forgotten just how heavy kayaks are. I’m probably willing to spend up to 800-1000 on mine, guessing wife’s will be cheaper bc she doesnt care about fishing. Seeing as the weight issues might be kinda unrealistic, what I’m looking for is a kayak that isn’t a massive/heavy battleship. Some of the fishing kayaks I see it seems like you might as well just get a jon boat. We would be primarily using the kayaks for general paddling around and fishing was more of a secondary consideration.
My son has a Perception Caster 12.5 that is made fro the old Tarpon mold. It is a good paddling kayak and what he fishes from. They are not terribly heavy and well within (under) your price range.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
50 lbs is realistic if you keep it to 10 ft or less. WS tarpon 100, OK tetra, perception, …plenty out there.
Since you can afford it, I say look at a native manta ray 11 and versa board. both are light and have built in wheels. the manta ray seat is like a la-z-boy.
Look at the Pungo series from Wilderness Systems, or the Tupelo series from Jackson. Both are sit in sides with large cockpits. Right around 50 lbs each, and easy to “shoulder” to walk to the launch. You are not going to carry as much large gear as you could in a sit on top, but the boats are lighter (sometimes MUCH lighter), and generally paddle more efficiently than most sit on tops. The Jackson model, look at the 12.5 size, even has factory installed gear tracks front and rear for rod holder/camera/fish finder mounting.
We will have these boats out at the East Coast Paddlesport and Outdoor Festival in April if you and your wife want to try any of these out!
Mainstream Jazz and it’s Perception twin (Tribe, I think) is a great all-around boat. It’s a sit on top of roughly 10’ length and it’s stackable.
Mainstream was a division of Perception and the boats use the same molds. They have good handles on each end and a handhold groove molded in on both sides.
At 43 lbs you can carry it yourself or your wife can take the front two and you grab the back two. This is how we normally do it- because the boat can be fully loaded and carried to the water.
These boats track relatively straight, are easy to fish out of, and are capable up to Classs II rivers. I’ve done a III rapid in mine. Tough little boat and very forgiving.
If you want downsides: your butt will stay wet (not a good winter boat), you do have to make some paddle adjustments when fishing in the wind, a bucket/square milk crate will not fit the rear (but a small cooler will)
Unfortunately, Legacy killed off the Heritage name and is no longer making the boats. Hurricane watersports bought some of the molds, and is producing a few of the old designs from Liquid Logic and Heritage
Wow- now that is a light boat! Sure comes with a heavyweight price though!
That would be sweet for those portages required up in the lakes region of Minnesota or Canada. I read one time where you cannot use a wheeled cart in some of those areas.
Weight is sort of like speed. It’s a function of cubic dollars. Just how light do you want it to be?
The W/S Pungo is hard to beat for a comfortable, shoulderable, sit in.
Sit ins get a lot of bad press about getting swamped. Like any other toy, you shouldn’t use it if you don’t know how to use it properly. That includes being able to self rescue.
