Navigation

Tarpon 160i review

At the beginning of this year, Mark Pierpont Captain of Team Wilderness Pro Staff contacted me to join their team. Of course I gladly accepted. I was previously paddling a Tarpon 120, and I have been paddling the Tarpon 160i for about 11 months. Wow, what a difference in its glide. I can paddle longer distances and with greater ease.

* Photo courtesy of John Pawlak

At first I started out with the popup seat it comes with, which I have found to be sturdy, and works well enough. You definately have to buy a seat pad though as any roto-mold kayak will be rough after a few hours on the water. Below the stock seat…

In fact, I used the popup seat that comes with the kayak for about 3 yrs, until I got a seaairsports seat. Check out their gear!

http://www.seairsports.com/

Below is a picture from their website, as you can see, it can handle lots of gear! The thing that is great about the popup seat for the beginning angler is that you are ready to hit the water, and don't have to spend any extra money to get started. However, I am very pleased with the Pacific Angler high back seat, great comfort!

I have rigged a fishfinder across the bow, and not much else, as you can see in the picture, I like to keep my bow open for my jig stick for quick use on boiling yellowtail.

Fish Finder

I recently have upgraded to a Garmin 178C color GPS fishfinder....

I rigged this Fishfinder mount to be removable, as I have broken the mounts on my racks in the past. As you can see in this picture, I have a screw mounted with a wing nut, so I can easily remove it.

I never launch in surf with it, even during lake conditions, you
never know when that sneaker wave might come through.

Rod Holders

I have added two in the front on my new boat. These are the Tite-lok holders. I believe RAM mounts would work as well. I use them for trolling, esp in Bass tourneys whereby the true artist uses a Frenzy while trolling. They are also good for placing a rod up front on a drift, when your kayak is being pushed sideways, it allows me to have two rods out when bottom fishing.

The tite-lok holders work great, easy to reach, you can change their angles depending on what you are trying to do, and you can take them off. I'd like to see a flat spot on this boat on the sides for flush mounts.

I do not use them for trolling live bait when I stalk pelagic fish, I use rear flush mounts, as a clicker is best for yellowtail, or WSB fishing. This boat has room for four rear flush mounts, I have angled the furthest ones back to be used as storage, a place to put a rod
and get it out of the way.

The more forward flush mounts, I have angled out further, which are designed for trolling live bait.

Bait Tank

This year, I started to use the Liquid Fishing bait tank. This tank is awesome! I really like that it is small, yet can hold plenty of bait, and works well as a live well for bass tournaments. I added three rod holders to it. Check out www.liquidfishing.com for quality bait tanks that won't break the bank!

Below you can see that the stock bungee system in the tankwell easily holds the bait tank in place.

Paddles

This is something that usually confounds true paddlers when they see a kayak fishermans boat decked out with several hundreds of dollars of gear, such as, fishfinders, GPS, Avet reels, Calstar rods, then a cheap metal paddle. I am lucky enough to represent AT Paddles

It is a carbon fiber paddle, and makes a world of difference in paddle efficiency. Paddles are something that are used most of the time when you are on the water, might as well make it high quality.

Check out a carbon fiber paddle, you will be happy you did, some other quality brands are Werner, and Onno Paddles.

Hatch

The Wilderness Systems Hatch system, from what I have seen is the best available. Now this is something I didn't believe when I first started paddling, it looked too simple, and was dubbed "tupperware" style. This hatch NEVER leaks, in fact, the hatch goes on just like a tupperware container, causing a great seal. In addition there are no straps to deal
with, it pops on, and stays on, even in large surf 6 ft faces, tumbling with gear, and washing up the beach 50 yards, the hatch never popped off. Below you can see the hatch from the bow of the kayak.

Wait, here is a better look at the hatch...

sorry, here we go, this is a nice shot of the hatch...

Notice the forward bungee system. I have had to use this more than once as I have forgotten my leash. It is good to slide your paddle into when you need a place for it.

On the other hand I have gotten a sabiki stuck in it as well... The benefits outweigh the occassional sabiki snag.

I can also fit 8ft rods through this hatch, and at least four down the sides of the hull, in case there is surf bigger than 4ft when landing.

Hooping for lobsters

When I first got this kayak, I decided to hang onto my Tarpon 120 as a lobstering kayak. One day, I decided to take out my T-160i to see how it would do. Needless to say, I haven't had to use my old T-120, as the 160i is much better at paddling 5 hoopnets, bait, and gear to the lobstering spot. It surprised me that it was so manuevarable when positioning my kayak to pull my nets.

The stability is very good too, I never feel like I am going to tip.

Surfing

Amazingly this kayak surfs well. It took some getting used to because I was on a 12ft kayak, which now seems like a toy. One thing I did was play in the surf, and learn its nuances. Most of the time, you should really avoid riding a wave, but knowing some basics such as, leaning back to lift your bow will help with pearling, using your paddle, and leaning into a wave as well. As a last resort, when getting bucked, I jump off to avoid snapping rods, gear.... Sometimes, you have no choice, but go for a surf... as was the case in the baja picture below.

Diving

This kayak performs well, as far as, lugging heavy dive gear past waves, and to some great dive spots. Kayak diving is a great way to get to spots that are far from shore, or may be technical when shore diving.

After my first kayak dive, I felt it would be a long time before I ever did a shore dive, as it was much easier. I either tie off to kelp, or use an anchor system.

Video of this kayak in action!!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2211916148227594926

The rest of my arsenal....

Chris

Check out Wilderness Systems Kayaks.

www.wildernesssystems.com