New to Kayaking

medic1

Senior Member
Just bought two cheap kayaks for my son and me to get started with. We will be using them to fish out of in a small local river and lakes primarily. I need to purchase all of my gear. Need advise on what's important to get or consider. Also, is an anchor trolly necessary?
 

Coenen

Senior Member
Just bought two cheap kayaks for my son and me to get started with. We will be using them to fish out of in a small local river and lakes primarily. I need to purchase all of my gear. Need advise on what's important to get or consider. Also, is an anchor trolly necessary?
First and foremost, good quality, comfortable PFD's. NRS makes a very popular model in the Chinook. I wear an MTI Solaris F-Spec that I have liked a lot.

After that, a few waterproof Plano boxes, and some rod floats and you should be about there. If you're going to be anchoring a lot, a trolley will be a big help. Kayak fishing a lot about taking less to the water, not more, so don't get caught up trying to bring your whole tackle box in the yak.

A quality paddle is nice to have as well, but not super essential if you're just getting started.
 

jcarleto

Senior Member
Anchor Trolley

I have them on my boats, but I don't use them much. It is rare that I sit still long enough. When I do, they are pretty helpful, as I fish the Etowah mainly and it has a strong current. It lets me position the boat for casting. Also, I don't typically use them with an actual anchor. The river is shallow and I just punch down a pole through the anchor trolley ring.

My typical use is to stop either just before or just after a fish weir or other structure that I want to cast upon. I stop either because I want to spend a little time there or because the current is too strong for more than one cast otherwise....or because I don't want to get dragged through the fish weir in case I hook up and need to fight the fish rather than mind the boat.
 

Teh Wicked

Senior Member
Comfortable PFD is your first purchase no matter what, the more comfortable it is the more likely you will wear it constantly.

Anchor trolley...I got one on mine, but I don't ever use it. Especially not that I got a brush anchor, it was way cheaper, easier to deploy and hold me great on the river.
 

Davis31052

Senior Member
I echo the responses on a GOOD Quality comfortable PFD's for the both of you.

Next would be a comfortable seat, if your boat will accept one.
 

Upatoi Sportsman

Senior Member
I echo everything said. I have a anchor trolley but rarely use. The best thing i did was bought an aluminium shaft canoe paddle from walmart and cut it down. I keep it between my legs and use it for minor adjustments while im fishing a particular spot.
 

61BelAir

Senior Member
What everyone else said.....plus a waterproof phone holder. We like the bag style with lanyards. If you look around on Amazon, etc. you can get them for less than $10. Attach the lanyard to your seat or PFD. We haven't had one leak yet and you can still talk and use your touch screen through it. (Well she can.....I'm still in the stone age with a basic phone.) Much better than the waterproof boxes because you can leave your phone protected all the time.
We are guilty of carrying too much tackle, but I hate not having something when I need it. We use tackle bags that hold about 5 boxes and plenty more instead of using the milk crates like everyone else. At Christmas we upgraded to some new Ozark Trail tackle bags that were only around $30 and will hold anything you could want.
 

Ruger#3

RAMBLIN ADMIN
Staff member
PFD is #1, boat boxes that seal for storage. Tackle storage boxes that fit in the sealed boat boxes. You will get an eventual baptism and it’s nice to have all your gear float to the bank and be dry on retrieve. The phone dry bags are great as well.
 

IvyThicket

Senior Member
I'll reiterate what a lot of people have said, having learned the hard way on many of these things.

Comfortable PFD is the absolute #1.

The absolute #2 is a comfortable seat and cheap kayaks they usually do not have. Trust me, you can get by on a budget yak. You'll never survive on a budget seat. I tried it with my first kayak purchase, a Field and Stream Eagle Talon 120. The seat was horrendous. A 4 hour sit would leave you with 2 days of backache. There are tons of mods you can make with an upgraded seat, just search around.

#3 I would say, and it's already been mentioned, but ditch the traditional tackle in terms of tackle boxes and bags. I figured this out the hard way. They are cumbersome, take up a lot of space and are hard to grab in a pinch when you to need to change lures. 3 or 4 Plano boxes that you can store around and under your seat are the best. A small sling pack that you can throw behind your seat isn't bad either.

An anchor trolley is absolutely useless 90% of the time. I installed one and in 2 years used it once.

One of my most used pieces of gear was a simple 5 gallon bucket with lid from Lowes. They're easy to tie down and can be used to throw miscellaneous items to get them out of your way. I tried a basket first, but found the bucket fit in the rear storage better. The snapping lid isn't necessary but does help in case of a rollover and to keep things dry outside of the dry storage.

Lastly, in my experience, I installed 2 rod holders on the left and right hand side of my boat, near my knees and I found them to be virtually useless for what I do. My boat is sit on top where yours might not be, I don't know, but I found that when I was casting and retrieving they seemed to get in the way a lot and when I was paddling, rather than place my rod in the rod holders, I just laid them down between my legs for easy pickup and to keep them out of the way of trees and such. This may not work for a sit in kayak but for sit on top, this was my experience.
 
Top