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Can anyone recommend a nice kayak for under $500? I am mainly looking for something that I can easily load into my pickup by myself and that is fairly stable in the water. I plan to do some fishing out of it but it doesn't necessarily have to be a fishing specific kayak.

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I saw both a sit in and a couple of sit on top designs at Walmart of all places. But the hull design on the sit on tops looked very stable to me ( I didn't look at the bottom of the sit in), having hard chines and only slight center v, it made almost a triple line bottom. $400. All the really nice kayaks for fishing or even cruising will be two, three and four times that cost. For the money this looked to be a good design that could be tossed around etc.. Sorry, I do not recall the name and I have not paddled one..

 

They had 10 foot kayaks for under $300.

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I saw the ones at Walmart, too. Looked as good as any other.

Gander Mountain also has several low cost designs.

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Yeah Mike, the design doesn't look to be so much different from a lot them, they looked doable to me.. You really have to paddle a kayak to know for sure though and there are proven designs out there that fishermen just seem to love. Hey, this may well be one of them or another one of them, if it was a new model. I've never looked in Walmart for a kayak, we have shops around here that cater to the paddle crowds, and I do mean it's getting to be crowds. Especially in salt estuaries around these parts.

 

I think the Emotion Stealth and the Ascend 12T would both be good choices as well, and both under $500.

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Last night, there was a show on TV about smallmouth fishing in central TN from a kayak. The guide had a sit-on kayak but couldn't see the brand name. The river was a great looking river but they only said it flowed into the Cumberland River. I guess that narrows it down, huh?

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This speaks of Tenn. waters that flow into the Cumberland, 7 of them:

 

By Ann Toplovich , Tennessee Historical Society

md-C175a.jpg

Emil Bott's painting of the Cumberland River near Nashville, ca. 1855.

From its headwaters in Lechter County, Kentucky, to its mouth at Smithland on the Ohio River, the Cumberland River travels almost 700 miles and drains a watershed of 18,000 square miles. Over 300 miles of the river flow through Tennessee, which contains 11,000 square miles of the watershed. Seven major tributary river systems to the Cumberland rise in Tennessee: the Obey-Wolf, Roaring, Caney Fork, Stones, Harpeth, and Red River systems, as well as the Big South Fork of the Cumberland, which enters at Burnside, Kentucky. All but the Red River enter from the south side of the Cumberland

 

A link to the whole article: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=343

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$400 kayak is only the beginning you need life jacket, paddle. Get one around 12' lot easier to paddle than 8' tube. Look around you find someone upgrading this spring and have one to sell. Don't go for a cheap paddle, good light paddles for close to $100. Waterproof bag to store stuff, clips to fasten everything down. So when you dump you won't loss your stuff. Look at kayak shops also, so you see the difference in the plastic and the build. They have demo and last year models that needed to move cheaper.

Take a class on paddling and rescue. I've had to get people back in the kayaks that have fallen out in small lakes to Lake Erie. Life jacket is not a seat cushion only works wearing it.

Go out with others.

Paddle the kayak if you can before you get it. They all paddle differently. Some will feel like your pushing the whole lake in front of you, other want to turn on you.

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Good point about the life jacket. I STRONGLY recommend one, and I recommend the inflatable type. It's much less bulky, doesn't block airflow, so you stay cooler, and can be automatic or manual trigger, depending on your skill level.

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DaveG, the Caney Fork is noted for its trout fishing. Got an invitation to fish there from an acquaintance. Also she invited my wife and I to visit her in Wyoming. Need to start saving our pennies.

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Some day I'd like to get back out to Nev. and Cal. along the Truckee river Skeet. Cut Thoats and browns and rainbows in the 8lb class out there. This summer we have a wedding in upper NY state though, in Aug. I suppose the fishing is lousy in Aug but that is when the wedding is and it's my Grand Son so I'm kind of stuck with it !!

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The Sam's Club in my town (Holland, MI) has--or did have, a few weeks ago, anyway-- this fishing kayak for around $360. It's pretty nice--12' long, built-in skeg wheel for rolling it down to the ramp from your car, etc.

 

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/angler-kayak-angler-kayak/prod16980072.ip?navAction=

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Dick's occasionally has good prices on 10 ft. Pelican and similar SOTs. I saw one that actually had a built-on anchor trolley. Mike's right about inflatable PSDs being less hot, but remember he's in Florida. Lot's of more northerly places a vest type is actually a good feature. But get one and wear it. A sleeve paddle float is helpful if you fall out and want to be back on.

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Last night, there was a show on TV about smallmouth fishing in central TN from a kayak. The guide had a sit-on kayak but couldn't see the brand name. The river was a great looking river but they only said it flowed into the Cumberland River. I guess that narrows it down, huh?

 

There's a couple big Cumberland tribs in middle Tennessee with excellent smallmouth fishing. If it wasn't the folks at Fly South outta Nashville guiding, I'm sure they'd have an excellent idea of which watershed was featured on the show.

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Last night, there was a show on TV about smallmouth fishing in central TN from a kayak. The guide had a sit-on kayak but couldn't see the brand name. The river was a great looking river but they only said it flowed into the Cumberland River. I guess that narrows it down, huh?

 

it wasnt fly south

 

http://www.kayakbassinshow.com/media/pdf/knot-right-nbc-airing-schedule.pdf

 

i think they used wilderness brand kayaks

 

that was a good show on the smallies

 

these were the guides

 

http://www.tnmovingwaters.com/

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One of the posters above suggested a 12 foot length kayak as good. I agree, 12 ft gives a good cross section of handling and speed. I own a 14 ft Wilderness Systems Pungo myself, it's pretty fast for a fishing/recreational kayak ( sit in by the way) but my wifes 12 footer of the same model is nearly as fast but will turn quicker. Both paddle with little effort for forward motion . With kayaks and even canoes, as the length goes up generally speed will too for the same effort.

 

Life jackets are a given and in some states, if not all year then at least part of the year, a requirement actually. It is in this state in the cold water months and time and again I see paddlers go off with out them. It's like some sort of macho thing or something, well there is no macho in a dead body laying in a coffin.

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