Well... I finally broke down and finally bought my kayak. Which I've been fixating on for the last couple of months.
So Saturday afternoon, I somehow pulled my lazy ass out of my apartment, drove down to Wilmette and paid a visit to my good friends at Hedlund Marine and purchased the damn thing. After about a month and a half or so of researching feasible boating options for a city dweller like myself, I finally decided upon Hobie's Outback SUV Fishing Kayak. It's not the traditional kayak per se. You don't sit inside of it and do Eskimo Rolls in the water or take it white water rafing down raging waters.
No, this kayak is different my friends...
This kayak is what is classified as a "Sit-On-Top" kayak. Similar to a regular row boat, I guess. One can paddle it like a regular kayak, or one can pedal it..
Yep, you heard me correctly... pedal.
Hobie came up with a new fandangled pedalling mechanism so one can motate it on the water like pedalling a bike. (It's pedalling system is apparently mimicked on how a penguin literally flys underwater or something to that effect).
This pedalling system (aka mirage drive system) is really what attracted me to the hobie cat in the first place. As with fishing, especially Walleye fishing from a boat, one would use a trolling motor to, in a sense, troll at speeds comperable to that of small aquatic bait (what the fish feed upon). Or something like that I'm guessing.
So with the ability to power the kayak with your feet, this leaves your hands free for fishing, reeling and of course smoking. At least this is the big selling point (not the smoking bit) that Hobie pushes, and from all the third party material I've been reading about this, this really does seem the be the case. I really haven't seen any negative articles about it; only positive articles praising the innovation. Kudos to Hobie!!
So there you have it... my reason to buy a kayak, even though I've never kayaked in my life.
-------------------
Growing up in Montana, I guess one just "is" an outdoorsman, whether you like it or not. I've always love the outdoors and being around the water and fishing (but I still can't swim that well even though I took lessons as a young lad).
Even the 10 years I lived in Arizona, my buddies (Insomnia Dave and Buddha) always found time to go camping and fishing and enjoy the outdoors.
But I tell ya, I've found it really kind of hard to be an outdoorsman living in the City; well an outdoorsman with a particular penchant for fishing and fed up with fishing from the shoreline all of the time. I swear the best luck fishing I have ever had was from a boat; shoreline fishing always left me frusturated and seeing everyone out on the water just makes you yearn to be out in the middle of the lake even more.
So what is a city dweller like me to do if he wants a boat?
But even though the kayak in itself is fairly minimal, I still needed to find a place to store it as its dimentions are 12'1" long and 34" wide. To large to store inside my apartment and in my assigned storage closet in my apartment basement.
After shopping around for appropriate storage units and boat storage around some of the neighboring lakes, I didn't find anything reasonable. Well long story short, I worked out a deal with my building landlord (not Italian Steve, but a new guy) and he let me use the garage of our building (for a minimal fee - $10/month) since the only thing currently in there are garden hoses, a few small couches and odd 1970's era wall hangings (not sure what these are).
So Saturday afternoon I picked up the kayak, drove to the neighboring forrest preserve, unwrapped it and gave it a good once over.
Got home, tried to give my Landlord a call to gain access to the garage, but couldn't get a hold of him.
I guess I'm going to have to leave the kayak on my pickup tonight just inviting anyone to come snatch it from atop my pickup and steal it, hawk it and sell it for parts in Tijuana.
With not much choice, I parked my pickup in plain view of my picture window of my living room overlooking the street and intermittantly checked up on it every hour or so to make sure no one tried to steal it from atop its pearch of my pickup.
Lets just say I didn't get a very sound night of sleep in that night.
I mean I wasn't exactly worried that someone was going to really steal it...
But it's Chicago... You always hear about big city crime here, because... well, because this IS the big city.. The land of Al Capone, the El Train and Jerry Springer.
Finally at 4:30am and fed up with the restless sleep I was attempting to get, I decided to get up and head to Wisconsin to test my new toy out...
So Saturday afternoon, I somehow pulled my lazy ass out of my apartment, drove down to Wilmette and paid a visit to my good friends at Hedlund Marine and purchased the damn thing. After about a month and a half or so of researching feasible boating options for a city dweller like myself, I finally decided upon Hobie's Outback SUV Fishing Kayak. It's not the traditional kayak per se. You don't sit inside of it and do Eskimo Rolls in the water or take it white water rafing down raging waters.
No, this kayak is different my friends...
This kayak is what is classified as a "Sit-On-Top" kayak. Similar to a regular row boat, I guess. One can paddle it like a regular kayak, or one can pedal it..
Yep, you heard me correctly... pedal.
Hobie came up with a new fandangled pedalling mechanism so one can motate it on the water like pedalling a bike. (It's pedalling system is apparently mimicked on how a penguin literally flys underwater or something to that effect).
This pedalling system (aka mirage drive system) is really what attracted me to the hobie cat in the first place. As with fishing, especially Walleye fishing from a boat, one would use a trolling motor to, in a sense, troll at speeds comperable to that of small aquatic bait (what the fish feed upon). Or something like that I'm guessing.
So with the ability to power the kayak with your feet, this leaves your hands free for fishing, reeling and of course smoking. At least this is the big selling point (not the smoking bit) that Hobie pushes, and from all the third party material I've been reading about this, this really does seem the be the case. I really haven't seen any negative articles about it; only positive articles praising the innovation. Kudos to Hobie!!
So there you have it... my reason to buy a kayak, even though I've never kayaked in my life.
-------------------
Growing up in Montana, I guess one just "is" an outdoorsman, whether you like it or not. I've always love the outdoors and being around the water and fishing (but I still can't swim that well even though I took lessons as a young lad).
Even the 10 years I lived in Arizona, my buddies (Insomnia Dave and Buddha) always found time to go camping and fishing and enjoy the outdoors.
But I tell ya, I've found it really kind of hard to be an outdoorsman living in the City; well an outdoorsman with a particular penchant for fishing and fed up with fishing from the shoreline all of the time. I swear the best luck fishing I have ever had was from a boat; shoreline fishing always left me frusturated and seeing everyone out on the water just makes you yearn to be out in the middle of the lake even more.
So what is a city dweller like me to do if he wants a boat?
- I live in an apartment.
- Let alone affording a motorized fishing boat (aka. Lund), I have absolutely no room to store one unless I pay someone to store it for me. Which in itself seems like waste of money unless I was a fanatical fisherman/boatsman.
- My little Ford Ranger couldn't haul one around (or at least comfortably).
- And there are just to many damn good looking women in the summertime downtown. Can't say the same about women who enjoy fishing, camping and just generally roughing it. But I know she's out there and I will find her. (that is a promise)
But even though the kayak in itself is fairly minimal, I still needed to find a place to store it as its dimentions are 12'1" long and 34" wide. To large to store inside my apartment and in my assigned storage closet in my apartment basement.
After shopping around for appropriate storage units and boat storage around some of the neighboring lakes, I didn't find anything reasonable. Well long story short, I worked out a deal with my building landlord (not Italian Steve, but a new guy) and he let me use the garage of our building (for a minimal fee - $10/month) since the only thing currently in there are garden hoses, a few small couches and odd 1970's era wall hangings (not sure what these are).
So Saturday afternoon I picked up the kayak, drove to the neighboring forrest preserve, unwrapped it and gave it a good once over.
Got home, tried to give my Landlord a call to gain access to the garage, but couldn't get a hold of him.
I guess I'm going to have to leave the kayak on my pickup tonight just inviting anyone to come snatch it from atop my pickup and steal it, hawk it and sell it for parts in Tijuana.
With not much choice, I parked my pickup in plain view of my picture window of my living room overlooking the street and intermittantly checked up on it every hour or so to make sure no one tried to steal it from atop its pearch of my pickup.
Lets just say I didn't get a very sound night of sleep in that night.
I mean I wasn't exactly worried that someone was going to really steal it...
As once a few months ago, I left my window open in my pickup with my wallet sitting on the seat in plain view - yea that's pretty stupid, eh? But nothing was stolen or missing; which totally shocked me. Not gonna do it again, regardless...
But it's Chicago... You always hear about big city crime here, because... well, because this IS the big city.. The land of Al Capone, the El Train and Jerry Springer.
Finally at 4:30am and fed up with the restless sleep I was attempting to get, I decided to get up and head to Wisconsin to test my new toy out...
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