Gear advice. New to kayaking

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juancts
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Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by juancts »

Hi ! I discovered kayaking (saltwater) a couple of weeks ago and immediately fell in love with it. So. Im new to kayaking.

I just ordered my 1st kayak Vibe Sea Ghost 130.

I'm now looking for a good paddle and fishing rods for my kayak.

I'd appreciate your comments and recommendations on paddles and rods.

Thanks !!

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Neumie
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by Neumie »

juancts wrote:Hi ! I discovered kayaking (saltwater) a couple of weeks ago and immediately fell in love with it. So. Im new to kayaking.

I just ordered my 1st kayak Vibe Sea Ghost 130.

I'm now looking for a good paddle and fishing rods for my kayak.

I'd appreciate your comments and recommendations on paddles and rods.

Thanks !!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
Welcome, I apologize for not seeing this post earlier.

I thought Vibe kayaks came with their own paddle? If that's not the case anymore expect to spend 150-200 for a decent paddle. Bending Branches, Accent, Cannon, Aqua-Bound and Werner all make great paddles. Find the lightest one in your budget from one of those brands and go with it. I prefer paddles designed for high angle paddling; those will have a broader blade. Given the higher seating position of the Vibe you're probably going to need at least a 240 cm paddle.

Lots of good choices out there for rods nowadays, though may be hard to find in stock at the moment. I'm partial to Waterloo and their Salinity rods are great. They have a cheaper rod called the Phantom. Other great options, depending on your budget, are Daiwa Aird, Falcon Coastal, H2O Express Ethos, or Shimano GLF. Baitcasting reels I'd look at the Lews Inshore, Abu Revo X Inshore or Shimano SLX. Spinning I'd recommend sticking to Penn Fierce III or Battle III or Shimano Sedona or Naci. Obviously you can spend more, but these are all great options. I recommend at least one baitcaster and one spinning setup for fishing the coast.
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Ron Mc
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by Ron Mc »

Werner carbon-shaft/glass-blade paddles are the best performing and best paddle buy extant.

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What you gain with a bent-shaft paddle is indexed hand position for optimum performance.
Sizing paddle length is important. On my narrow Tarpon and short sitting height, I get by with 215-220 cm.
You probably need 240+ for your boat, but you also want the shortest paddle length that works for you.

Rods, I'll put in a plug for 13Fishing, always Lamiglas, and Tackle Direct house brand.
Crowder E-series Lite are IM6 graphite, moderate action and tough as nails.

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You want to be able to throw 1/4-oz, at least up to 5/8 oz, and a lighter second rod to throw 1/8 oz is also good.
7' rod length is all around perfect, and if you stake your boat to fish across passes, a longer rod, even up to 8-1/2' can be useful.
The best buy in fluorocarbon is Seaguar Red Label, and, yes, 12-lb test is exactly what you want.

If you don't fish baitcasters already, go for spinning tackle.

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Last edited by Ron Mc on Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:00 am, edited 6 times in total.
SWFinatic
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by SWFinatic »

Welcome to the sport! With gear you can go cheap or you can go quality. If you start out cheap you'll end up going with quality. There are cheap rods and reels out there that will certainly do the job. If you're a live bait fisherman a $40 rod and $40 reel will work fine for a while. You can get a Lew's rod and a reel at Walmart for about a hundred bucks. If you're throwing artificials I recommend getting a good rod/reel. In addition to what Nuemie mentioned St. Croix and Laguna rods are also good choices. Lew's baitcasters are good, they're easy to clean and maintain and cast well for the most part. Love the drag in a Lew's. The Lew's Custom Inshore is good. This is a solid inshore choice for the money. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HB ... UTF8&psc=1

As far as line there's a bunch of options. As long as you don't fish around a lot of oyster you'll do fine with 12 lb test Big Game mono just don't set your drag too tight. Braid is good for casting distance but has it's drawbacks.
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by SWFinatic »

Neumie wrote: I thought Vibe kayaks came with their own paddle?
I think they stopped selling paddles with their kayaks (at least the Seaghost kayaks) in 2019 when they made improvements to the center and front hatches (ones with the orange latches).
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Neumie
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by Neumie »

SWFinatic wrote:
Neumie wrote: I thought Vibe kayaks came with their own paddle?
I think they stopped selling paddles with their kayaks (at least the Seaghost kayaks) in 2019 when they made improvements to the center and front hatches (ones with the orange latches).
Gotcha. Thanks for sharing.
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Re: Gear advice. New to kayaking

Post by Ron Mc »

Our friend Tony did a pretty good job chasing us all over Estes in his Vibe for 2 days in September, but he noted he had to work extra to keep up.
And that's one heck of a long paddle
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I'll add some discussion about braid v. mono/fluoro.
If you fish baitcasters, you pick braid if your reel set up and casting skills are good enough to fish all day without backlash.
A braid backlash can very well end your day - mono backlashes are easier to deal with.

Spinning tackle is easier to fish with braid, but you should fish with a manual-bail mindset. That is, keep your free hand close to the bail, close the bail manually, and turn sideways with the rod to take up line slack before you begin retrieve. This is a good habit to follow even with mono. Using auto-bail-closure is how you get line under your spool and a total nightmare with braid.

On both baitcasters and spinning tackle, shallow spools made for braid load braid better - deep spools are for mono.
Spinning spools that don't lay braid flat can peel off terrible wind knots in a cast.

Fishing braid, you still need to use a mono/fluoro leader for shock tippet - braid does not stretch before it breaks.
If you choose braid, you probably want 20-lb, but note that on a spool, 200 yards of 12-lb fluoro = 350 yds 20-lb braid to fill the same spool.
If I have a spool like that to fill, I like to take pieces of heavier braid and fill the spool halfway, then finish off with my working braid.

On those Japanese spools marked PE line No., multiplying by 10 approximates the braid-pound-test and capacity in meters. PE 1520 spool = 200 meters 15-lb braid.
PE No. 1.5 is approximately 15-lb test, PE No. 2 is approximately 20-lb test (braid)
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