Gear: Pelican Castaway 116

The Pelican Castaway 116 was the first kayak I bought back in 2004 when I first thought I needed a kayak.  I didn’t know the first thing about kayaks or kayaking; all I knew is that I wanted to get to some new and remote spots to feed my photography addiction, er hobby. Even after reading up on kayaks I still wasn’t sure I wanted to drop a lot of money into something that might turn out to be very seldom used. You know how it is with buying a boat: It’s the happiest day of your life when you get it and the second happiest day is when you get rid of it. Or so they say.

Well I took the Pelican Castaway out a few times in some nice safe water to see if I could get the hang of it. I bought the thing in late October as if riding a kayak isn’t a wet affair. I figured I could get a week or two of paddling in before winter set in for good. So after a few rides I put the yak away until spring when the water was warmer and I wouldn’t have to worry about going in the drink and dying of hypothermia.

Now fast forward past a couple of summers of collecting dust — both me and the kayak. Last March I finally got back around to the kayak and loaded the boat on the truck and took it to Cap’n Popeye’s place on Bastrop Bayou and that is where it has lived ever since. It has found a happy home there.

I really liked kayaking on my first few rides way back when I bought the boat but never got around to doing any serious paddling until last March. I got serious and started paddling several times a week. Sometimes four, sometimes only two, but on average three evenings a week I could be found paddling the little green Pelican Castaway kayak up and down Bastrop Bayou.

I started out slow and gradually worked up to a few miles. Then after a few weeks I could easily go a few miles before stopping for a rest, which had more to do with learning how to keep the boat on a straight line than with any huge increase in fitness I think.

By the end of the summer I could truck about 8 miles in a couple of hours. I’d stop at the bayou on the way home from work, throw the boat in, and paddle off into the setting sun. I did some estimatin’ and I figure I probably paddled about a hundred miles last summer.

I’ve also had the Castaway kayak in the open waters of Lake Conroe, in the surf at Quintana Beach, in the tight confines of Oyster Creek, and in the woods of Austin Bayou. I have put this boat through the full gamut of almost every use around here on the Gulf Coast, except for a bay. Here are some caveats you might want to consider:

• Do NOT take this boat in the surf — the front hatch will not repel a single drop of water.
• Do NOT take this boat on any open water such a large lake or bay that has any chop at all — the front hatch will not repel a single drop of water. If you are going to be on rough water, you need to be able to drain the inside of the kayak. If a lot of water is coming over the bow you may need to drain quite frequently. Even if the kayak does not take on enough water to sink, five to ten gallons of water sloshing suddenly from one side to the other will cause the kayak to capsize making it near impossible to re-board. We know because we tested it. Cap’n Popeye tried for 45 minutes to re-board the kayak while adrift and the water sloshing from one side to the other always caused the kayak to flip the other way, Popeye with it. Was quite hilarious to watch actually as Popeye didn’t realize the boat was full of water and was determined to re-board the kayak without coming to shore.
• As soon as you buy the boat, got some plastic weld and apply it all around the scupper joints inside the hull before you launch the boat for even the first time. Use way more goop than you think you should–like a whole tube on each scupper. Trust me, one or more of the scupper joints will eventually come apart and when it does you don’t want to be on open water as the boat will sink. The goop works great. I used Water Weld because it canbe applied and will set under water, supposedly. The first application lasted all summer. Carry some goop with you in case you need it.
• The Castaway, like almost all Pelican kayaks, is a two-piece boat and the seam is prone to split. You guessed it– water weld.
• Even with the reasonably wide beam the Castaway is not a stable boat if you are a big guy. Average sized people and kids can stand up on it and paddle around. I never fell off the kayak, but it always felt as if it could flip at any time.

Other than that, I have no complaints. The Pelican Castaway is too small for me but I’ll say it makes for a good trainer as I had to hone my skills quickly just to keep the dang thing right side up. It comes in handy as a spare, too. The relatively affordable price allowed me to get into the sport with a kayak that was marginally big enough for me (at the time I bought it) but didn’t break the bank.  If that describes you, this might be a good starter kayak, with respect to the caveats above about the leaky hatch and scuppers.

The boat handles about as well as you would expect for the flat keel.  The front of the boat is easily pushed around by wind and current so you have to learn how to control the track as you paddle or you will zig-zag all the way to the destination and paddle about three times more than needed for going in a straight line. This is part of what makes it a good trainer.

Included in the price is the basic angler setup, which costs extra on other competitively priced kayaks, making the value even better.

For a beginner, a trainer, or for near shore fishing and recreation, like ina bayou or pond, this is not a bad kayak. If you plan on being more adventurous with you kayak, I recommend looking at spending a little more and getting a better kayak. You will be happier in the long run.

Gear: Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack

For the most part I consider myself to be a minimalist but it seems over the years I need to carry more and more stuff when I go off into the wilderness. Extra batteries for everything, extra memory cards for everything, keys, wallet, digital voice recorder, food and water commiserate with the duration of the trek, tripod(s), binoculars, tobacco, fire, compass, etc, etc. I found myself carrying a predator call the other day. Used it to. Works.

So back to all this gear I carry. It’s probably not even that much bulk wise compared to a bow hunter carrying his tree stand around, but if you forget one thing it has the potential to spoil the fruits of the trip. A dead battery or full memory card with no spare is not a good feeling when you are only half way through your planned trip.

To make a long story short, I’ll just come out and day it, I bought a fanny pack. The Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack. I was milling around at Bass Pro Shops the other day when I made the kayak shopping circle and I grabbed it as I walked by. I fastened it around my waist to see if it fit and put it with my stuff to buy.

Since I upgraded to the Nikon D90 I am carrying two cameras since I have not yet bought a full compliment of glass to accommadate the range of photography in which I engage during my outdoor excursions. All I have is a 70-300mm telephoto so I need the old Panasonic Lumix to shoot any macro or wide angle shots. I also have been using the Lumix for video, which is acceptable for basic web productions.

The nice thing about the fanny pack is that I could put the Lumix, camera bag and all, right into the main front pouch with some room to spare. I was wondering why I hadn’t went fanny pack a long time ago. There is a smaller pouch in front of the main pouch that is roomy enough to hold all kinds of battery chargers and batteries. It also has a front zippered pouch that will hold a few small things. On the belt there is a bottle holder, a buddy-loc connector, and another small pouch which I stuff with a lens rag and the beep-beep opener for my truck.

Some of you may have already guessed the problem. The damn thing is too heavy for the nylon belt and plastic fastener and the whole rig tends to sag after humping it a mile or so. On the first day I was ready to shitcan the whole thing but after some readjustment to the belt I was ready to give it another go. That worked out pretty good but still over the course of a few hours more than one adjustment to the belt was required. The last thing you want to be having to do when you are stalking something to photgraph is have to stop, set your camera down and fiddle around with the fanny pack sagging down around your knees. It’s a deal-killer.

A few days ago I wound up carrying the fanny pack out of the woods across my shoulder and I haven’t used it since except as a convenient way to carry a bunch of gear from the truck into the house in one trip. I gave it one more try this morning except I took the Lumix camera out of the main pack and hung it off the belt on the opposing side, balancing the load and freeing up quite a bit more storage. That worked well enough though the fanny pack did still tend to slip which was annoying but probably has more to do with the fact my gut is bigger than my ass.

I can’t say the Remington Deer Season Fanny Pack is a great piece of gear, but it was only $12.95. If you don’t need to pack a lot heavy gear and you have an ass to hold the belt up with, this bag is a deal.

Gear: Ocean Kayak Drifter

I’ve had the Ocean Kayak Drifter for a couple of weeks now and have been out in it six times already. Twice just paddling on Bastrop Bayou, once fishing in Bastrop Bayou to test the “angler” setup, twice fishing in Christmas bay and twice fishing in Salt Lake. A couple of the fishing trips I was alone and so far I am the only one to catch any fish so I don’t have a lot of video yet of the actual fish catching, but I can comment on the yak.

In ideal conditions an able yakker could probably make an Ocean Drifter go at a steady 4 mph, but I would be conservative here and say when planning a trip use 3 mph as the baseline for this kayak mostly due to the drift. True to its name, this kayak is a drifter, even when you don’t want it to. On a day with any significant wind, plan on the front end of the kayak getting blown around like a wind vane.

In good conditions the Ocean Drifter is moderately comfortable. In the winter use of scupper plugs is essential as true to it’s reputation, the Drifter is a wet ride. For someone over 200lbs, the water comes in through he scuppers upon boarding and never drains.

In adverse conditions, such as high winds, the Ocean Drifter is not very comfortable and doesn’t perform very well, as mentioned above. A rudder should help alleviate the drift problem to some extent but such add-ons start to make an inexpensive kayak into an expensive one. The wet ride you just have to live with. I recommend wearing some waders in the cold water months and forget about it in the summer months.

Even at full speed the Drifter can turn on a dime, but it does not track very well at all no matter what. While paddling it takes on water over the sides in as little as a one foot chop, and everything in the boat gets soaked in chop bigger than a foot and half. Without a real keel to cut through the chop, the flat hull rises with the wave and then slams back down. The resulting spray soaks everything so stow your camera bag and dry wear. A practiced stroke is required to keep the boat on tack. However, unlike my first kayak, the Pelican Castaway 116, the Drifter is very stable and never did I fear the yak might flip.

The molded foot pegs cause my feet to fall asleep after an hour or so of paddling. I prefer the adjustable pegs. And for the two hundred dollar premium charged for the “angler” package at least one cleat and two forward facing flush-mount rod holders or at least one center mounted rod holder should be included. Why there is no forward-facing rod holder is a mystery. I wont even mention the well-known fact that the tank well will not accommodate a standard milk crate, the holy grail of rigging out a fishing kayak.

A big positive about the Ocean Kayak Drifter is that the front hatch doesn’t leak at all. The Pelican Castaway required a pit stop about once an hour to drain the inside of the boat. I had to completely seal the scuppers with epoxy sealant due to the welds failing and the front hatch never held out a drop of water from the day I bought it.

Another positive on the Drifter is that is relatively small at 12′ 4″ and weighs only 54 lbs. which allows the boat to be easily and safely tied into the back of a pickup truck making it convenient for a single person to quickly load and unload.

I wouldn’t buy the Drifter in the “Angler Edition” for $599 but for $429, which is only about $50 more than you can buy the Pelican Castaway 116, it is a worthy kayak that I would not hesitate to reccommend over the Pelican for basic or entry level kayak fishing, especially for the bigger guys. The Pelican comes with a paddle and a built-in backrest included, which are extra on the Drifter, but those items are at the very low end and will need an upgrade if you plan to kayak much. I do recommend a good seat as the seat on the Castaway literally rubbed my back raw. I could only paddle so much as my raw back could stand on any given day.