Jackson Coosa

judicious foot dangling.

         

That's awesome!  I have to get to the NW and catch some of the popular river sport fish there and try some of this "judicious foot dangling."

I would think they would be at California Kayak pretty soon.  Being a family operated company we still close the plant down and give our employees 2 weeks off for the Holidays.  They work hard for us and deserve it, but it of course does mean that boats don't ship out for 2 weeks from the factory.  Still, we'll get goin again tomorrow and they should get theirs this month so long as they ordered them, which I am sure they did.  We ship boats out in the order they were ordered from dealers so obviously Alder Creek got their order in nice and early. 

Hey look, I'm a "krill" now!  haha, sweet...

i could never get them to stay put over the breathable waders so i guess that's why i don't use them much. [/size] [/color]

I'm guessing you're not using them right it you can't get them to stay put.  Can you take a pic of you sitting in your kayak with the thigh straps on?  Also, not all factory placement of padeyes work well.  You may have to experiment with positioning.

-Allen

might be a while before i can, but i do know they worked ok with the neoprenes on. might be there's more to grab?

would have been nice to have one of these yesterday.  My Tarpon handled the river pretty well, and the whitewater wasn't really an issue as I just punch through it. (whitewater was an occasional 1ft wave and also a 2ft barrier dam  ) 

Hitting eddies on the other hand was a whole other story.  It didn't matter how hard I paddled or back-paddled, there were several times where the boat was just going to spin.  It didn't cause any real danger, just a PITA and took away from the experience a bit. 

Additionally, while drifting I had to constantly work to keep the boat facing the direction I wanted, while rocker would help with this and make it considerably easier, it will never totally eliminate a boat from spinning.

you have to use your edge while entering or exiting eddies. it's the only way to control it.

you have to use your edge while entering or exiting eddies. it's the only way to control it.

I was trying, didn't seem to help the 16 foot Jabba's Sail Barge.  Edging did help when I was trying to keep it straight in normal flow though.

it takes some practice. that's one thing I spent a lot of time working on. Every eddy line I saw for two years, even off a wing dam on the Columbia, I practiced peeling in an out of eddies until I see what was going to happen before it did and adjust accordingly and it became normal.

would have been nice to have one of these yesterday.  My Tarpon handled the river pretty well, and the whitewater wasn't really an issue as I just punch through it. (whitewater was an occasional 1ft wave and also a 2ft barrier dam  ) 

Hitting eddies on the other hand was a whole other story.  It didn't matter how hard I paddled or back-paddled, there were several times where the boat was just going to spin.  It didn't cause any real danger, just a PITA and took away from the experience a bit. 

Additionally, while drifting I had to constantly work to keep the boat facing the direction I wanted, while rocker would help with this and make it considerably easier, it will never totally eliminate a boat from spinning.

I find the Tarpon 160 hard enough to turn as it.  It's the last SOT I'd take on a river.  Think shorter before thinking about more rocker.

-Allen

I find the Tarpon 160 hard enough to turn as it.  It's the last SOT I'd take on a river.  Think shorter before thinking about more rocker.

-Allen

It was that, or the inflatable.  Sunday it was 23 degrees when I started, water splashed on the deck was frozen within seconds.  There was no way I was drifting the inflatable in that weather as it fills up with water and has to be dumped out often.

I'd kinda like to see a non-river version of this boat too (Coosa).  Just built from the bottom up for fishing and not adapted like all the other boats.  Just all the little features like tackle under the seat, fishing rod deck storage, etc., make it look super convenient. 

yeah the 160's much better at tracking than turning. shorter is better for moving water, just have to keep capacity in mind.

Last night I picked up a 15lb drift anchor (smallest they had).  I'm going to attach it with 30ft of 6mm accessory cord.  I am also going to install a U bolt in the middle of the handle area at the rear to keep the rope from pulling to the side or wearing out the handle/hull.  I plan to 'tie' the rope off with a figure 9 caribiner which will be hooked to a side handle (same place the video shows the doggy leash hooked up)

Maiden voyage tomorrow on the Wynoochee. 

With the way the boat is setup for fishing already, I don't foresee any additional modifications being needed at all.

With the way the boat is setup for fishing already, I don't foresee any additional modifications being needed at all.

Where's the fun in that?! 

Ravdakot and I took our Coosas out on the Wynoochee yesterday for ~12 miles of 'controlled environment' testing     It was the first time in more than a month that we had the time, and the weather cooperated.  Unfortunately, the fish did not cooperate, and we came home empty handed.

The Coosa...  Let me start by saying, that for the most part, all mishaps were due to us being complete asshats and doing stuff that well, normally wouldn't be attempted.

Anchoring - At the start of our drift, I snagged, and decided it would be a good time to try out my drift anchor in current to re-tie.  I got the anchor to hold, and stabilized things for about 10-15 seconds then...

Me: "this doesn't feel very stable, it keeps wanting to pull to the side"
Rav:  "oh doesn't look too bad, looks like you're ok"
Me:  "I dunno man, I think this thing is gonna fl.... #@$%#@$#@!!!!"

At which point the kayak turned too far to one side and started to flip, I bailed to keep my gear in the boat (was re-tying remember?), released the anchor, and did a controlled slide down the river in chest deep water, pulling my yak to the side.  I then had to walk back upstream and retrieve my anchor without a boat, which was pretty fun. 

Verdict:  Too much keel to anchor in the current of a typical NW river, The sharp, short keel makes the boat want to turn sideways quickly, and once the boat catches an edge, it immediately wants to flip.  At that point, we both put our anchors inside the hull, and didn't attempt it again.

Flat water - we found some really nice flat water with little to no movement (like in the demo video) and sure enough, standing up was easy and pretty darn stable.

Not long after that, we both decided to put the seats in the lower position, as it was clear we were going to be swimming a good bit if we didn't.

Tippy - with the seat in the up position, no surprise, the boat is super tippy with any kind of current.  The hull itself seems to catch edges like crazy.  I've done that river 3 times in my Tarpon 160, and always catch edges, but the boat never wanted to flip.  With the Coosa, any edge I caught required immediate paddle action, or you risk going for (another) swim. 

This became more evident later on when I side-swiped a log on the bank, in pretty slow water.  For reference, I side swiped a tree trunk a few weeks back in the Tarpon in the main current, and it was a non-issue, just leaned into the tree and pulled myself off the log.  I was thinking in the Coosa it would be nothing to hit this log with nearly no current, and use it as a stopping point until Rav finished re-tying.  Was I ever wrong.  I barely touched this log, and the upriver edge immediately caught the current and sent me swimming, again. 

The edge catching is really my only complaint, as it caused the anchoring and obstruction issues, in fact, the edge was the cause for every swimming incident.  The width creates a very stable platform in slow or non-moving water, but in a current, that boat is super tippy.

Whitewater - the boat does in fact handle whitewater well if you're paddling straight through (which you should do anyway) but if you get turned the least bit, it wants to tip.  Even in an eddy, the boat wants to tip if you hit the current the wrong way.  It was really hard to get used to that, particularly since my Tarpon 160 didn't have that problem, and I expected it to be the other way around.

Spinning - My Tarpon spun a LOT when I would drift this river, really long with lots of keel.  The Coosa was very easy to keep turned the direction I wanted to be, and obviously reacted quickly to turns with the paddle.

Fishing - The fishing specific features of the boat are pretty nice.  The paddle 'stager' is really only good of you're standing, but the way the seat is set up, even in the 'low' position makes casting and seeing where to cast a good deal easier.

Storage - storage in the front and back is great.  Nice fat areas to store gear in, and the little deck storage with the rubber lid is great for getting to things like sunglasses and rain hat.

Overall a good boat.  Less keel and improvement in the edge catching would be nice.  Decent for the river, and great for bass fishing or for a backup boat for your SLF on a lake.

Nice report!  Sounds like you had a decent float.  To bad the boat didn't perform as well as hoped.  I thought it might be the thing for Northwest "Steelhead Rivers" but it sounds like its lacking in the stability department, which is a deal killer for me in those type of conditions.  I was considering adding one to my fleet but I think after reading this I might just hold off until something better comes along.   Did you touch any fish?

No fish.  Saw one boat that had 1, and another that had 3, everyone else was empty handed.  Oh and saw one caught as I passed them   

Rav will probably chime in later, but for stability, his fish and dive has worked well on the river.  It will spin out easily, but neither the fish and dive or my Tarpon have ever flipped, and we both managed to come out of our Coosas yesterday.  The Nooch has a pretty high flow rate in most places, but a bigger and/or slower moving river would be great in a Coosa.

Lee's comments are pretty much spot on. I still think they are great river boats, and pretty much perfect for most of the rivers in our area. All of our unnecessary swimming really came from us expecting more stability than what we actually had, and doing things we wouldn't normally try in those conditions. For instance; as I was rounding a bend I casted cross river to a deep undercut bank. As I did, I hit a slow swirling eddy and tried to keep fishing instead of managing my now spinning boat. This resulted in the keel nicking the gravel bar behind me, and dumping me on my ear. BTW all of our spills were with the seats in the high position. Once we dropped them down......no real serious stabillity issues. The Coosa was much easier to manage/steer on the river than my F'n'D though. With the keel on the F'n'D I end up going downstream backwards for a good 1/3 of the drift, and spinning in circles for another 1/4 of it. The Cossa makes standing super easy!! I think the F'n'D might be a little more stable (will test this side by side soon) once on your feet, but the high low seat makes it far easier to go from sitting to standing and back again. Very cool little boat, and will no doubt be my dedicated drift/LMB boat. I would recommend to anyone that might pick one up to do some flat-water paddling in it before running it down a river.