Thursday, May 19, 2016

Choosing a kayak - Update

So as many of you know, my wife and I are selling our house.  It goes up for sale today with a realtor.  If all goes as it normally does we should be seriously kayak shopping within a month.

I've still yet to ride a Coosa HD, but I've had one offer so far to meet up with someone to try it out.  I've also got some idea of trying out an ATAK by Wilderness Systems.  Seems like a pretty nice kayak.


Over all things haven't changed much since my last post.  We've been spending all our free time working on the house to get it ready for sale instead of fishing.  Had a little chance to make a run to Lake Georgetown to do some fishing with only one legal fish making it to the boat.

Hopefully once this house sells I will be able to get back to writing something every week! I feel bad that I haven't spent much time doing this, but truthfully, it's hard to write about fishing when you aren't fishing!  ugh!

But until the house sells, blog writing is unfortunately going to be secondary.











Thanks for hanging in there - come back soon as I don't expect this to take much longer.  And then the fishing twice a week will happen again.  :)

Tight Lines Y'all!

Mike
GeeksFishToo

2 comments:

  1. Just my 2-cents-worth...I would put a Jackson kayak at the bottom of your list. I bought 2 Jackson Krakens a couple of months ago, at the same time a friend bought a Native Ultimate FX. Lots of dinheiro for the local yak shop that day, 😄! While I like the Krakens, I wouldn't say I would not been pleased with another choice. I have no buyer's remorse, but no buyer's enthusiasm, either. But, since I have owned them, I have learned that what is just as important as the kayak itself, is the company that makes and warranties them. In this area, I am totally displeased with Jackson. We had an issue installing the rudders (which are $239 pieces of crap, compared to my friend's $299 Native rudder). We could only get the bracket mounting screws to go in about halfway on both boats...NOT good!! I spoke with Jeff at Jackson, who had never heard of a problem like that. But, since it happened two kayaks, he decided to check with the guys "in back." When he came back on, it was a different story. There is a known issue with the rudder kits. Four of the screws supplied with each kit are coated with Loctite, and we were told to remove the bracket screws immediately, locate the other two "yellow" screws in the kit that we had not used yet, discard them, and buy new ones. Great! A 1 1/2 hour round-trip to Lowes, and some additional time cutting two (for each boat, so 4 total) of the screws down in length, because we could not purchase the identical size & length of screws for the brackets, and we could only finish one kayak. The other kayak's bracket mounting holes were spaced too wide for the bracket. Long story short, another phone call to Jeff, and we were told to go online and start a warranty claim. I assumed our local kayak company, where I bought the boats, would be authorized to fix the problem. But, tomorrow will be 10 days since the claim was submitted, and nothing. Crickets. I did verify they received the claim. They did. So, I am not sure why it's taking so long to just get it fixed! Very aggravating, especially given the coinage I dropped for the kayaks. I would not recommend Jackson products to my very best friends, or to a stranger. There are too many good boats out there to choose from, and I know there are companies that provide much better support. But, who knows, maybe I am just expecting too much! Like, wanting to be able to use a rudder on a supposed "rudder-ready" boat

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    Replies
    1. Wow! Thank you for your very detailed reply!

      So I had an issue with the first Jackson Big Tuna I bought. The kayak is designed to be used tandem and that's what my wife and I did for the first two years. Somewhere in the first year, the slots where the seats sit in started cracking and water was leaking into the hold. I contacted Jackson and they agreed that there was a defect with those slots and that they had fixed the new ones by adding more material and better support under those areas. So they agreed to ship a new hull.

      They took forever to get going on this, but eventually we worked it out to pick up the new kayak at our local dealer. That was over two years ago.

      We used it for a short period of time as tandem and then my wife switched over to her own kayak (wooohooo!) However, we noticed about this same time that the slots on the new kayak were again cracking. No kidding. But since I started using it single it hasn't done this.

      I assumed it was partly due to my weight. I was heavier then (kayak fishing has been my weight loss program), but I wasn't THAT heavy. However, since I moved to the middle seat I haven't had that problem. I can say during this time I also became more adept at getting into the kayak instead of "falling" into it. LOL

      Still, this one thing was why I am interested in exploring other kayaks. While I think the features on the Jackson's seem to be decent, I've not been pleased with the way things hold up. I've not heard of anyone else complaining about construction of other brands.

      On a side note, I think Jackson completely redesigned their seats to sit differently on the bottom of the kayak and so solved the problem they were having. I think the design of the slots was really a poor design.

      Thanks again for telling your story. It will help me make a good decision. We are getting closer to the point where I'll need to actually make a decision and I want to spend my money wisely. :)

      -Mike

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