OUR WEEKLY BLOG FOR ALL THINGS KAYAK FISHING
old town sportsman pdl 120
three year review
It’s hard to believe it’s been three seasons now that we’ve owned our Sportsman PDL 120’s, the time has flown by! When we first decided that we wanted to fish from kayaks, we had no idea where to begin, hopefully this helps answer questions some of you may have about not only the Sportsman PDL 120, but also how to go about choosing the kayak that’s right for you.
First of all you need to figure out what type of fishing you’re going to be doing, small lakes, large lakes, rivers, or ocean. These will all play factors in deciding which kayak you will eventually buy. Once you figure out the type of fishing you will be doing, you’ll want to figure out your budget for your fishing kayak. These kayaks vary on price a TON! Want a Rotomolded hull? Pedal Drive? Electric motor? Room for all of your accessories? These are all things not only to consider, but things that will inevitably bring the price up, and don’t forget you’ll want to leave room in your budget for the gear that you’ll want to get as well. Another thing to consider before you dive head first into a fishing kayak is storage, and transportation. Do you have somewhere out of the sun to store your kayak? UV rays are extremely harsh on Polyethylene and you want to protect your investment wherever possible. These kayaks can be HEAVY, how will you transport it to and from the water? Roof racks on your car or SUV? Pickup truck box with a bed extender? Or Trailer? These are all commonly overlooked questions to ask yourself before jumping into the fishing kayak market. But if all of those questions have been answered and you still have your heart set on buying yourself a shiny new fishing kayak, then here’s how we decided on the Old Town Sportsman PDL 120 as our fish catching machines.
We had a list of criteria that our fishing kayaks would need to have before we would take them home. They would need to be stable, pedal driven, have a dealer in our area, a large weight capacity, aftermarket options, and last but not least have a good warranty policy. So let’s dive into those topics as they apply to the Sportsman PDL 120 and our thoughts on those categories after owning them for three years.
STABILITY- A quick search on YouTube and you will find many videos showing how stable the PDL 120 is, with that said it’s still a kayak and it will flip if you don’t have some basic kayaking skills and an understanding of how these boats work. Take your body off the center line, and reach over the side of the boat to far, you’re going swimming. Not paying attention and let a big wave push you to far to the side, yup, wet again with gear floating all around you. No kayak is immune to flipping but the PDL 120 is an extremely stable platform if you pay attention to your body as well as the water conditions. Thanks to it’s 36″ wide “Double U” hull providing a ton of primary stability. In our opinion the lower seat position helps to keep your weight inside the kayak, and accidental weight shifts at a minimum. We fish exclusively Salt Water, so our kayaks have experienced all kinds of different conditions and we can honestly say they’ve passed every test we’ve been able to throw at them. The only downside if there is one is that the PDL 120 is not as fast as it’s big brother, the BIGWATER 132, which has a totally different hull shape designed for speed and cutting through choppy conditions. But what the PDL 120 lacks in speed in certainly makes up for in it’s incredible stability. The Sportsman PDL 120 gets a A+ from us in the stability category.
PEDAL DRIVE- We knew from the very beginning of our search for a fishing kayak, that the ability to have “instant reverse” would be vital in our success on the water. We sometimes are fishing close to rocks with swells pushing us towards them, being able to reverse away from the rocks allows us to target more species of fish. As well the ability to reverse in an instant aids us in landing fish on the side of the kayak, and helps to control the kayaks in ocean swells. The PDL drive from Old Town is a complete game changer when it comes to kayak fishing. We can average a steady 3-4 Mph depending on winds and currents. A top speed of around 5 Mph is more than enough speed for our needs. The is solid when locked into its lowered position, and after three years of heavy use it still isn’t lacking any performance. One of our favorite things about the PDL drive is the ability to remove and change a prop if needed. This can easily be done on the water making the clearing of fishing line wrapped around the prop a breeze. We always carry a spare prop with us along with nuts and shear pins just in case, but thankfully we haven’t needed to use them. The water tight hatch is a nice touch as well, big enough to store a variety of different items, and we’ve never had water leak inside. Old Towns PDL drive has exceeded all of our expectations, the drive gets another A+ from us in the pedal drive category.
WEIGHT CAPACITY- We carry quite a bit of gear with us (probably to much) on our kayak fishing adventures. So we needed a kayak that had a large weight capacity that could handle us, and all of our gear. The Sportsman PDL 120 boasts a total weight capacity of 500 lbs. But keep in mind that doesn’t mean that you can throw 500 lbs. of weight in the kayak and head out on the water. The assembled boat weight is 116 lbs. including the 19 lb. pedal drive and the 6lb. seat. That makes the USABLE weight capacity 384 lbs. with Kyle being 6’4 and around 285 lbs. it still leaves more than enough weight capacity to carry all of our gear, cameras, food, and anything else we would have with us for a day of fishing. The PDL 120 gets an A grade in the weight capacity category, it could be a little higher but it’s more than enough for most people.
DEALER CLOSE BY- Having an Old Town dealer close to us played a crucial part in our decision making process. Living on an island has it’s benefits, but also has it’s challenges when it comes to getting a variety of different products. Thankfully our favorite tackle shop and outdoors store GONE FISHIN’ on Vancouver Island is an Old Town dealer. One of their locations is only a 20 minute drive from our house so naturally this played another huge part of our decision making process. Being able to physically see the kayaks in the store before placing our order was great, and also supporting a shop so near and dear to our hearts helped make the decision to go with Old Town easy. Having a dealer close to you helps in many ways but mainly for an warranty issues it’s nice to have someone who can walk you through the process.
WARRANTY- All Old Town fishing kayaks come with a Limited Lifetime Warranty on the hull against any defects. Old Town has a reputation in the kayak community of having one of the best and easiest to deal with warranty. The PDL drive comes with a 5 year warranty which is fantastic. Their customer service is right up at the top of the industry, basically they stand by their product 100%. A++++ in the warranty category.
AFTERMARKET ACCESSORIES- We know that Old Town is a business, when they design and eventually put a kayak on the market they’re trying to make a boat for a wide range of different fishing types and an equally wide range of people. It would be crazy for us to think that they should design a boat specifically for us salt water anglers targeting everything from Salmon to Halibut. Thankfully there are a ton of different companies out there that make aftermarket parts to help customize these kayaks to many different anglers. The PDL 120 is a great kayak in it’s stock form but there’s always room for improvement. Companies like Pacific Yak Angler in Canada, as well as Navarre Kayak Fishing out of Florida, have come up with some incredible designs to help make these kayaks work for whichever fishery you decide to be in. We highly recommend checking them out after you’ve gotten the feel for your fishing kayak and what kind of customizing you’d like to do with it.
After three seasons of salt water fishing from our Old Town Sportsman PDL 120’s we can honestly say that we made the right decision when we decided to purchase them. They haven’t once left us stranded, and still continue to deliver the same performance as they did our first time on the water. There isn’t one thing about these kayaks that would prevent us from buying them if we had to do it all over again, they’re that good. Not the “typical” style of kayak that you would “typically” consider for salt water fishing, a little bit slower, they don’t cut through the chop as easily, but we’ve pushed them to the absolute limits in some pretty crazy seas, and they’ve been able to handle everything that we’ve been able to throw at them and still keep coming back for more. We’re asking a lot from our kayaks, and they’ve delivered in every way, shape, and form. It’s hard to imagine what would be an “upgrade” for us if the time ever comes.
Cheers,
K&C
