TackleTour

Thanks Zander for the watercraft review! I found it to be timely, since I've been toying with getting 'something' along the lines of the article. The Kwik Tek Airhead 2 person Travel Kayak really caught my interest.

When we go to NW Ontario we always spend a couple days shore fishing one or two remote lakes that are only accessible by water. Although they are not that far to walk to, most locals don't even know they exist -- yet the smallmouth are plentiful, fat, and see no pressure. Every time we've been at these lakes, we've always said we need two things; a golf clicker to keep track of the 100+ monster smallies we each catch, and a small boat that allows us to move around instead of having to 'bramble' through the terrain on the shoreline. It's a major pain climbing over moss covered rocks, through the trees, fighting the mosquito, etc. on the shoreline.

I guess I have a few questions on the Twik Tek Airhead, how durable is it and with 2 anglers and how stable is it? The water in these small lakes is usually fairly cold when we are there since they are quite deep and isolated, and taking an unplanned dip could be a major problem. Also, do you inflate it with a cylinder of compressed air or does it have a foot pump? How difficult is it to fish from?

TIA,
Chuck

Hey Chuck. I don't have the Kwik Tek but it was one of the inflatables I considered other than the Sevylor Rio and the Advanced Elements StraitEdge. I finally decided on the AE StraitEdge (one person ) and have not been disappointed yet. It's about twice as much as the KT and Rio and I honestly believe it has much better build qualities than the other two. Like I was saying to Spiderman8403 who posted the topic above yours, I recently reviewed it at paddling.net under their "Reviews" section if you want to check it out (Reviewed by VaVoom btw). I use it for inshore fishing off the CA coast for calicos, halibut, and hopefully lings and rock cods when I can muster myself to get out deeper (I fish by myself btw...i know, not safe...but that's the fisherman in me). I also plan to use it at my local lake on my next free weekend. I've been out using it for the past 4 weekends and I've yet to get rolled by waves when launching, but I did get tossed out on my third outing when coming back in because i didn't ride the waves back in quick enough and the yak got sideways...but it didn't flip-I just got tossed out from not leaning into the wave fast enough. This is from someone who had NEVER even paddled a kayak before...but then again, I'm a fairly quick learner. My opinion is bias in that I haven't tested the KT and the Rio, but I believe I did as much research as I needed and made the best purchase I could afford...with no regrets.

Thanks nysmo for the links and info!

Chuck