http://susquehannafishing.com/
By Jon Shein
The Ocean Kayak Torque’s Minn Kota propulsion system
Kayak fishing is exploding across the country as it finally starts to penetrate into freshwater. It’s ironic because most people think of kayak angling as a freshwater sport, but the majority of its growth and the use of kayaks for fishing have been in saltwater. Many of us got started because we became tired of watching stripers and blues blitz beyond the range of our casts. Kayaks allowed us to catch those fish. Kayak fishing is growing in leaps and bounds and that was with very little growth in freshwater. That’s all changing now and it makes sense. There are very few environments a kayak can’t fish. Still one of the limitations that prevented the sport from being as popular as it could be was many fishermen weren’t interested in providing propulsion. They weren’t interested in the exercise. You either had to paddle or pedal a kayak, until recently. Now there’s another revolution in the sport that’s going to alter it considerably. That change is the rise of the machines, like in Terminator, but these machines aren’t robots, they’re electric kayaks (EK). For years the regional Ocean Kayak rep and I tried to get the company to make an integrated electric motor model. That’s because the parent company, Johnson Outdoors, also owns Minn Kota. This past summer they finally did it and introduced the Torque. It wasn’t the first production EK though. Legacy Paddlesports introduced the Volt a few months earlier. However the two kayaks are very different. I’ll discuss all the options available and different models along with features later in this series.
Putting an electric motor on a kayak isn’t new. Cobra kayaks and later on Malibu kayaks have offered motor mounts for years. They allowed one to attach a standard trolling motor. Also anglers would build their own mounts and attach a motor. While writing my book, Kayak Fishing, I spent seven months in the Everglades and there were three anglers who built a rear mount that functioned nicely. All these worked but they weren’t near what a proper integrated system could be. Every now and then I’d see a neat system on the various internet forums where someone with far more mechanical and engineering skills than most of us would build a really cool setup. However most of us are not capable of such things, and unless we knew someone we weren’t going to have one. Things took a significant turn for the better when an aftermarket company called Bassyaks started doing the same and offering them to the public. Bassyaks has kits for all the popular kayak models and they’ll design one for any kayak. A buddy of mine got one a couple years ago and could spend all day on the water without needing to use his paddle.
I’m a big fan of EKs, but I often hear people say if you want a motor just get a boat. There are a lot of reasons why I would much rather have an EK. For starters it’s still a kayak; the motor just replaces muscles with electricity. So let’s take a quick look at kayaks and why they’re such good fishing vessels.
First they’re inexpensive, relatively light, easy to transport and incredibly versatile. I don’t know of another craft that can float down the Susquehanna and then the next day launch through the Jersey surf. You can put the kayak on a set of wheels, called a cart, and wheel it into a remote section of river or a lake nestled back in the woods. These are places that you may only have been able to previously fish from shore, or via an inflatable or a float tube. A kayak can be customized to your needs and allow such places to be fished in a manner they may have never been before. There’s a lot a kayak can do and an EK allows it to do more. More next month…
Jon Shein is a veteran kayak angler. His recently released book, Kayak Fishing, can be purchased at the following website:
http://www.kayakfishingbook.net/
