Help Pick My First Kayak

The MX is also on my short list. Let us know how it does.

I splashed her at Cook Park in Tigard. Since it was my first out, I really wanted to keep other paddlers in sight, so I broke from plan and followed a beautiful wooden canoe - guy made it himself (!) - downstream. Through the riffle and around the bend past the foot bridge, turned around and came back - took a bit of paddling through the riffle there. Future note: always paddle upstream first, then drift down on the return leg ! The canoe people were doing a one-way paddle, having left another vehicle somewhere lower on the river.

The paddle was much like the demo. Very easy boat to get started moving.

I'm still hitting the side of the boat with my paddle a lot. Just too green at it, yet, even with a 240. Will get better with experience. I start to wonder whether paddling in the high seat position might give me a more vertical angle with the paddle. Less clonking the side, and a straighter paddle, too. Something to try.

I called it quits with around a mile total under the keel. Left thumb developing a nice blister. Obviously I'm not paddling correctly - the instructor at the AC class said if that's happening you're gripping too hard, or something. I wasn't real clear on what to do differently, being mostly focused on a non-drowning outcome at the time.

I did bring along a 2' shorty pole, mostly to go through the motions of casting and see what it's like to manage a pole and a paddle, what happens when you are on the pole and not the paddle, really. This slow moving river still manages to push you along quite nicely and unless you attend to matters it will happily put you in a tree stump or submerged boulder. Might need to figure out some sort of anchor system.

I almost caught a fish, anyway ! As I was pulling the spinner to the boat I saw something that was probably a foot long trout, but could also have been an eel (?) circle the lure and take off, having seen me and the boat. I'm quite sure with a real pole in the 5' class I could have thrown the spinner just about anywhere I wanted instead of just 15' off the boat, and somewhere along the way would have gotten a fish on. This is a snaggy river, so I think top running lures and bobber fishing are really the thing.

And of course, after I got back home, I turn the TV on to Outdoor GPS, they're fishing the Willy in their Hobie's, and a Hobie commercial shows the paddling system and she says "Why didn't you get one of those ?" GAAAAAARRRRRR! FATABINGA !!!!!!

After pointing out that they were paddling boats in the $2500-3000 range, she allowed as to how I had made the right choice.

I told her I expected to eventually end up with an Outback or PA12. To which she inquired "but what would you do with the one you just bought then [, dumbass ] ?" She didn't say the whole thing, but everyone knew it was there.

I had the great good sense to not reply with what seemed the obvious answer: "why, pass it down to you, dear".

Note: Do NOT take your brand new mirage drive into the Tualatin. At a number of places the water was just inches deep. Coming back up through the riffles, I couldn't take a real powerful stroke as the paddle was bottoming out. I'll bet I had just a whisker between the boat and the river bottom through there, and there were other places that were also quite shallow, if not so fast moving.

Now I gotta study up/obsess about outfitting her with tracks and rod keepers and crates and coolers and flags and such.

I did stop off at Home Depot and in the section where they have all the bungees, they have "replacement flags" for....I dunno. Some sort of safety flag. Orange square about 15" to a side, with a brass grommet in one corner. Perfect for the end of the  yak hanging over the tailgate. A small bungee through the carry handle then the grommet and we're in business. I also picked up a security cable and a combination lock to secure the yak in the truck for the occasional stop along the way.

The scupper-hole cart is awesome, by the way. Very easy to manage getting the yak from the truck down to the water and back.

By the way, the top picture from the water was taken through my phone's dry cover, aka a sandwich size ziplock baggie. Not bad.