2016 Jackson Coosa

 

2016 Jackson Coosa in Blue Fin...

There's that thing a woman has...call it intuition. The "I'll know it when I see it," gut feeling. That's the feeling I had when I first laid eyes on my Jackson Coosa. I have paddled several kayaks since I started kayaking last year, but when I took this yak down the river the first time, I knew it was the best choice for me. 

Certaily, my Jackson Kilroy was crazy stable. The thing felt as solid as a brick floating down the river, but it was just a little bit fast for the type of water that I typically float. The Kilroy has a hull that is built for open water and performs to sheer perfection on a lake or flat water. But rivers...where I usually am...well, the Coosa is the hands down winner. 

Here in Tennessee, I'm normally found on a skinny, shallow river that has some mild rapids. The Coosa is made to run moving water. It will turn on a dime, and is so responsive to a paddle stroke that controlling the boat is almost too easy. 

Jackson is introducing some really great colors for the 2016 model year. I picked the color "Blue Fin" and it's basically a turquoise and black color. It looks awesome in person. I don't really think the pics of it do it justice. 

New for 2016 on the Coosa is a SeaLine backpack that is waterproof, and a pair of fish grips. Only one complaint thus far with the new Jackson kayaks...they no longer come with a red safety flag. I think this is disappointing. I think a $5.95 tow flag should be standard with a $1400 kayak, but that's just me. 

Other than that...my Coosa has found it's "forever home."

 

The Jackson Cuda LT

When I started kayaking in the summer of 2014, my first kayak was a sit on top (SOT) version. I felt safer in such a kayak as my legs would not get trapped inside a sit in kayak if I were to ever turtle myself. Plus, I really liked the idea of scupper holes on a kayak as it means the kayak is self-bailing. That's important as getting a sunken yak out of the bottom of a river isn't exactly my idea of a good time.

This past summer, I have been using (and thoroughly enjoying) the Jackson Kilroy. I can't say enough great things about my Kilroy. It's been like the Cadillac of kayaks. Perfect for long distance paddles and especially paddling on flat water.

So, if I love my Kilroy so much why is there a picture of this new thermo-molded, Bic pen-esque looking kayak on my blog? Because I'm suddenly infatuated by it. Something about the shiny plastic has caught my eye. Besides being lovely to look at, the Cuda LT is lighter weight. Truth be told, the light weight is one of the major reasons I'm interested in paddling a Cuda LT in the near future.

My spine problems sometimes make it difficult for me to lift my Kilroy. I've started to use the awesome C-Tug kayak trolley to pull my Kilroy and assist me when I load and unload it. But the Cuda LT looks light weight enough that I could wrangle it sans wheels with the help of my husband.

The Cuda shares the same hull design as my Kilroy, which tells me it will be fast (I mean, come on, just look at it). I'm hoping that the hull also equates to the same stability my Kilroy offers. From what I understand, the Cuda LT is actually a little wider than the original Cuda, measuring 32.5" in width. It's slightly over 12' long and said to weight approximately 50 lbs. That's a whole 17 lbs lighter than my Jackson Kilroy.

The Cuda LT should prove to be a solid performer on moving water like I commonly encounter thanks to mild rapids or some fairly noticeable undertow.

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to be able to get a test paddle of the Cuda LT. I'll be able to give my two cents on it after I check it out. Maybe if I'm good, Santa will bring me one! :)

C-Tug Kayak Trolley

Let me just say this now so you don't have to bother reading any further. The C-Tug kayak trolley is amazing! It is the easiest way I have ever carried my kayak from the truck to the water, hands down. It's way easier than my husband and I having to break our backs lifting at our fishing yaks. My Jackson Kilroy weighs in somewhere around 64 pounds with the seat. It's also a little over 12' long, so moving it is completely awkward without a lifting partner. The C-Tug wheels make it possible for me to move the kayak all by myself. I can even wheel it to the truck and just lift the rear-end of the kayak up onto the truck bed. It's smooth. Like butta'.

I ordered my C-Tug wheels from Austin Canoe and Kayak. $149 US dollars. Personally, I think they are worth every red cent. I attached the wheels, and for lack of a better word, wheeled my kayak around our driveway and over the grass with zero problems.

Another cool aspect of this kayak trolley is the fact that the wheels on the C-Tug will not go flat as they have no air in them. They are hard molded plastic and are replaceable. The whole thing assembles in minutes and you can place it behind your kayak seat or you can break it down and store it in your dry hatch. I can tell to save time, I will just let the wheels hitch a ride behind the seat. What's really cool is, you can stack two kayaks on top of each other and wheel them both at the same time.

C-Tug. Buy it. Your back will thank you.

Review: Yeti Roadie 20 Cooler

Keepin' it Cool

Being outdoors means having a decent cooler to keep your stuff from turning into a puddle of hot, disgusting mush on a humid Tennessee day. When I first started kayaking, I bought a cooler from a local big-box store. Let me just say this much. It didn't work out too well. Sure, most typical coolers are cheap, but let's keep in mind the fact you seriously get what you pay for. I got tired of my ice being melted before lunchtime when I would be out on the water, and soggy sandwhiches are really no fun.

After a few let downs with some typical coolers which shall remain nameless...I ponied up for a new Yeti Roadie 20 cooler. OK, I actually begged my mother to buy one for me for Christmas last year, so she did. Under the tree was my new, beautiful cooler in a perfect neutral tan color. It was love at first sight. I actually remember sitting on the cooler opening my other gifts and handing out gifts to family members. I guess somehow mom thought I was worth spending $200 bucks or so on a cooler the size of a small microwave.

The first actual test of the Yeti Roadie 20 was when my husband and I took a drive down to New Orleans last April. I had a week off from work, so we decided a road trip was in order. We packed some ice in the Yeti and put it in the backseat of our car and took off on a 500 mile journey which took us the better part of eight hours to drive. When we arrived in our hotel room at the Sheraton on Canal Street in New Orleans, we were shocked to open the Yeti and find that we still had cold Coca-Cola products. But wait! There's more! We even had solid pieces of ice. Not ice water mind you, but ICE. The ice we took from our freezer at home in Tennessee had lived to see the state of Louisiana.

Here's the good stuff to know about the Yeti Roadie 20 on a road trip (maybe that's how it got it's name). The thing will keep your grub refrigerator cold. We only had to change the ice about once every three days in the cool confines of the hotel room. And it wasn't like we were piling it full of ice either. We only put ice in about one-fourth of the way up the cooler and it was perfectly efficient.

A negative when traveling this cooler? It is HEAVY. Can you say heavy? Loaded with food in it, it's even heavier. And I don't mean loaded with a rack of ribs or a few lobsters, I mean loaded with regular stuff like soda cans and some sandwhiches.

One other thing I'm not totally in love with on the Yeti is the handle. You have to really give it a firm whack to put the handle down. It certainly stays in place when it's in the lifted position. To lower the handle, you have to let it know who is boss. Raising the handle can be just as awkward. You have to exert enough force on it to make it come back up, only to hear this annoyingly loud pop when it snaps into the locked position so you can carry it. The handle is probably my biggest gripe with the cooler. If the handle was a smoother mechanism to operate, I think it would be easier to, you know...carry.

But how does it perform outdoors, you ask? My husband and I take the Yeti on our boat and our kayaks on day trips in some really hot temps during the summer months. The Yeti keeps ice all day long, and our food can stay just as cold as if it were in the comfy confines of our kitchen fridge. I have gotten ice out of the Yeti on boat trips six hours into a trip with 98 degree weather and still had solid, frozen ice. Bottom line, stuff stays cold. The Yeti Roadie 20 also makes for a pretty decent seat. In our boat, my legs get tired of being scruntched up in the front seating area, so I sometimes sit back further and use the Yeti as a seating surface. I haven't forked over the $79 fee that Sea Dek asks for a pad cut to fit the small top of the Yeti Roadie 20, so I improvise and put a floatation device/seat cushion on top of it and it works out just fine.

In the aspect of keeping your food and drinks cold, the Yeti Roadie 20 does it's job. It would probably be the perfect cooler if only it liked to be carried. That handle and I may never get along.

How My Love for Kayaking Began... 

 

If you're here, chances are you enjoy kayaking as much as I do. Not only do I enjoy exploration kayaking, but I also enjoy kayak fishing. I'm fairly new to fishing after a fifteen year lull from the sport. I'm also a kayaking newbie. Until the summer of 2014, I had never sat in, looked at, or even thought of myself in a kayak. I had some friends who paddled, and it sparked an interest. Last year I decided since I had the summer off from teaching, I might as well take up a new hobby. And so my love affair with all things kayak began. I've had many adventures since I first started kayaking, some of them are quite unforgettable. Catching my first fish from a kayak was incredible! Having an impromptu meeting with a snake wasn't one of my shining moments, but one I'll never forget and one I certainly hope I don't repeat any time soon. Needless to say, there have been lots of close calls and lots of excitement. No matter, it always keeps me coming back for more!

Before I get too far into my so-called fish tales, let's talk about equipment. Many times when I am on the river, I get questions about what kind of kayak I am using. At the present time, I have two very different kayaks, both built by the same awesome company. I use two different kayaks built by Jackson Kayak in Sparta, Tennessee. Not only do I love the fact the kayaks are built in the good ole' U.S.A., but they are truly the best kayaks I have ever paddled. And no, I am not affiliated with Jackson in any way as an employee. I do not have sponsorship from them either, but would love the opportunity! Yes, that was a totally shameless plug! Now, back to the yaks...

The Jackson Cruise 10 Angler

2014 Jackson Cruise 10 Angler with Bending Branches Angler Pro paddle

My first kayak that I purchased from a completely awesome store in Silver Point, Tennessee called Caney Fork Outdoors was a Jackson Cruise 10 Angler. I selected a color that Jackson was using at the time called Yellow Jacket. It was a unique twist on a camo pattern and being from Tennessee, you know I love me some camo. The Cruise 10 was the perfect beginning kayak for both exploration and fishing. The sit-on-top (SOT) style of the Cruise 10 gave me confidence as a beginning paddler. The stability of the Cruise 10 has been outstanding. I'm 5'9" and weigh around 150 lbs, and not one time have I ever felt like I was about to flip my Cruise 10. I have been able to stand in it and paddle, but honestly, I'm just more comfortable sitting down. The Cruise 10 Angler came outfitted with one Ram Rod holder that attached to the kayak by a Ram Tough Ball. The Jackson Elite Seat was also an added bonus to me as I have had a back condition known as Scoliosis since I was a child. I'm fortunate that my back is not visibly bent out of shape, but rather my spine is slightly twisted. I don't look physically impaired, but I periodically get numb legs from sitting too long or I get lower back pain. The Elite Seat has allowed me to be able to sit comfortably in my Jackson Cruise 10 for long periods of time and not be in pain. That really matters when you plan to sit in a kayak for a four or five hour river float.

Jackson Cruise 10 Angler on the Barren Fork River in Tennessee

Bending Branches Angler Pro 

 

 

Those are some bright paddles, right? Well, there's more to a paddle than just color. When I first started kayaking I used a really simple paddle. It was made for people like me, beginners. I evolved a little over the course of the summer and early fall in 2014, and I decided I needed a lighter weight paddle, something I wouldn't get tired of using on an all day trek, and something that would be really tough and hard for me to break. I did a little research, and I found that the Bending Branches Angler Pro was as close to perfect as I could find for what I wanted in a paddle. The BB Angler Pro is not only lightweight, but it's crazy tough. I have used it to push-off from my launching point with, shove my way off of shoals that we commonly encounter in the area where I frequently paddle, and I've also used it to measure a fish or two. Needless to say, it has never failed and it also just looks really cool.

Jackson Kilroy...The SUV of Kayaks

2015 Jackson Kilroy with Bending Branches Angler Pro paddle

After one summer floating skinny rivers, I decided I might want to try some larger bodies of water. That meant I needed a little different kayak if I planned to do much flat water vs. moving river water. I read about all the different kayaks that Jackson currently builds, and I decided the Jackson Kilroy was the one for me. I picked out my Kilroy and decided I would go with the color Urban Cowgirl that is currently offered on 2015 Jackson models. The Kilroy is the epitome of stability. Being a hybrid kayak, the Kilroy offers the stability and drier ride of a canoe and the sporty handling of a kayak. The Kilroy has basically the same Elite Seat used in the sit-on-top line of fishing kayaks produced by Jackson. The biggest difference in the seat in the Kilroy and the Cruise 10 is the fact that in my 2015 Kilroy, the Elite Seat offers a ThermaRest lumbar support pad. The seat is very supportive and with the addition of the lumbar support, I feel like I am sitting in a favorite lawn chair floating down the river. The Kilroy is larger than my Cruise 10 Angler. The Kilroy measures in at just slightly over 12' long and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 58lbs. It is not a kayak that I can load and unload by myself. Luckily, my husband comes in handy for this task. Together, we lift the Kilroy with no issues at all. The Kilroy comes outfitted for some serious fishing right out of the box so to speak. Kilroys come with two Ram Rod Holders and four (yes, I said four) track mounts for adding additional Ram Mounts or Yak Attack gear. In all fairness, I have used the Kilroy to run moving water as well. It's really an excellent all-around kayak. It's not truly limited to just flat waters like lakes or non-moving rivers. It seriously holds it's own running on Class I and Class II waters. I don't think I would try anything much faster than that because the Kilroy is not self-bailing as it obviously has no scupper holes as SOT's have to prevent them from sinking. Turtle this baby and you are own your own bailing water.

Depth Finder Love

Being the gadget nerd, I had to take advantage of the incredibly functional hard deck on the Kilroy and so I mounted a Lowrance Elite 3x depth finder. Most people ask me if I use it to spot fish, but I really don't. My main goal in using the depth finder is solely to know what depth of water that I'm running in at the time. Especially in unknown waters, I like to know what structures are underneath me and where the crazy deep pockets of water are located. This really helps me stay out of trouble as I'm not one of the strongest swimmers in the world thanks to my Scoliosis.

Lowrance Elite 3x Depth Finder

Installing the Lowrance was really easy in the Kilroy. I used the mounting base that came with the depth finder. At first, I contemplated buying a whole new Ram Mount system for it, but then I decided that the hard deck on the Kilroy would be ideal for just mounting the depth finder as if it were on a regular boat deck. The screws worked just fine going through the plastic deck of kayak with no modifications underneath. I was pleased with how clean it looked. My husband also drilled a hole in the deck so we could run the wires for the battery and the transducer and it would be all nice and neat looking. The battery sits in a plastic box I bought at Walmart for under $4 bucks underneath the hard deck and is held down by a built-in bungee cord that Jackson put in the Kilroy. It holds my battery down perfectly even when I have ran through mild rapids in my Kilroy.

Speaking of the transducer, I used a Ram Mount transducer arm and mounted it to the left rear track mount so the transducer arm would not be in my way during paddle strokes. This has really been a good set-up for me. It was super easy to put together and I actually installed it by myself. Other than my husband using his cordless drill to put holes in the hard deck, I was able to do all the set-up of my depth finder by myself.

Until Next Time...

For the yaks and my essential exploration and fishing gear, that about covers it! You get the idea of my basic set up. I'll be adding additional information to my blog that gives some reviews of my current fishing equipment. Look for my reviews of Yeti coolers, Browning micro-light fishing rods, Pfleuger reels, Astral PFD's, Astral shoes, Costa sunglasses, and anything else that I think might be of interest to new kayakers or anyone that wants to learn more about this ageless sport!

Until then, keep on yakin' and exploring!