I started with a Pelican and it allowed me to be comfortable on the water and realize how much I enjoy it. Great sturdy boat, I don’t worry about dragging it up on a rocky beach and scraping over logs. Sure not the fastest but definitely fun. I now have a Dagger Axis. I love the retractable skeg feature and am learning about the secondary stability. Thanks Pelican for getting me started.
Oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican!
His beak holds more than his belican.
He takes in his beak
Food enough for a week.
But I’ll be darned if I know how the helican.
By Dixon Lanier Merritt
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This whole posting is a bad case of blaming the gun (boat), not the person.
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I think it is more of the case of carrying the right gun for the job. If you want to bring down a grizzly then a 22 is not the right tool. Same with kayaks IMO.
I have a canoe and she has a rec-kayak and they are the perfect tool for each of us and we mostly paddle together. I added a little floatation to both just to make them a little easier for us to handle if we do go swimming not because we plan on using them outside their useful limits.
There is some merit to people objecting to the people selling such boats to not be qualified to instruct people where and when any boat should be used, but it is really the responsibility of the person buying something to figure out if it is what they need. People buying upper end equipment normally know what they want. People buying entry level equipment likely don’t know what they are getting into and they should be making an effort in finding out. It is still their responsibility if adults to do that. If you are a parent buying a boat for your kid as many around here do it is your responsibility to teach your kids. At least around here non of the above is happening enough.
Has nothing to do with the boats.
I always dreamed of ways to get on the water as a kid. Wondering if an old mortar box that was three feet by six fee with eight inch sides would float, or if a discarded cast iron bathtub could be paddled. Therefore, I admire and respect anyone’s decision to obtain an actual boat, because it fulfills a dream. If someone’s says “hi” to me at the launch area, I can’t help but ask him or her how they like their boat. I’ve never been in a Pelican, but the only person I ever talked to who spoke negatively about a boat was a woman unloading a Pelican. When I asked how she liked it, she snapped, “It’s TREACHEROUS. I won’t let my kid get in it!” She explained all of its faults and her bad experiences. I was actually shocked speechless and could only reply, “Dang . . . Dang!” Even more shocking than her vehemence toward the boat was how she climbed aboard and paddled away. I though . . . Am I witnessing a poor soul paddling to a suicidal end . . .
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I don’t think they are that bad. The problem is that some people buying them might actually need something higher end. I mean you can get a screw in a wall with a screw driver but it is a lot better with a drill…doesn’t mean the screwdriver is bad.
I know quite a few people who paddle both the Pelican kayaks and canoes. The only fault I find with them is their longevity when not stored well but otherwise they are good value for money.
I am about to post a photo I took today of a pilican, go look at it.
I have a Pelican Mustang 120 and it set me back about $500 from Dicks Sporting Goods. I actually love it when im out on the water just paddling and enjoying the day. What I dont like is going out with the speed demon paddlers that leave me behind…then I say to them at the end of the day did you see all the Pelican birds…answer back no. Did you see the eagles teaching their babies to swoop and fly…no, where was that? Did you see the beautiful glass house along the bank? Answer; No i missed that. So my point is…yes, the Pelican is a great sturdy secure roomy boat if you want to cruise along and catch the sites. If you plan on paddling so fast that you miss everything than look elsewhere for another brand kayak. Im new to kayak but not new to boating so I enjoy being out on the water.
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Fast kayaks can go slow. Slow kayaks can’t go fast.
I paid 700 you paid 500 
Different strokes for different folks. I can float all day in mine and see everything or photograph anything. I can see more because I can more places and stop when I want to.
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I have two box store kayaks in my fleet. They gather dust and cobwebs like nobody’s business.
No, you are not being elitist. And yes, Pelicans are probably as bad as you think they are…if not worse. The most technical rescue I ever did on a river was for someone who capsized in a Pelican. Minimal flotation. Lots of volume. Low quality plastic. They don’t belong on anything other than small ponds or very quiet lakes and rivers. For those specific conditions they are great beginner boats. I once saw one in a river postage stamped around a rock that the owner simply abandoned. I think they probably felt good about walking away and never looking back.
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Yes he and you are being elitist. I just joined and have owned some high end fishing Pelican kayaks and they have been safe and fun. Not everyone is trying to break speed or tracking records records. Judging a brand from 1 rescue is a joke. I could buy a Hobie or Bonafide if I wanted except my other boat is a 20k bass boat because it is also great and no need to spend 100k on a bass boat.
I buy a boat which fills a need, so worry about your needs and limit your advice to safety or other practical issues and not opinions based on elitist ideology.
Have a nice day.
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Pelicans are awful. They heavy and slow and pretty ugly.
I dont even know how they fly. Much prefer swans which are pretty and graceful.
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I used to think that too (about pelican birds being ugly and gawky flyers.). Then I was hiking a trail in Wyoming’s Teton range many years ago and spotted a pair of large white birds circling above the 12,000’ ridge line. Too far above us to determine what they were but the sun was flashing off them against the brilliant blue sky as they soared ever higher in a graceful aerial ballet. As we watched another hiker approached who turned out to be a park ranger. He stopped to look up with us and I asked “Are they swans?”. “No.” he replied “They’re pelicans from Jenny Lake riding the thermals over the mountains to the Idaho side.”
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Loons are heavy and slow too. I watched one take off from a still lake while out paddling one morning last week — it ran at least 100 yds, with only feet and wing tips touching the water, before finally getting airborne, then an additional struggle to stay aloft while turning fast enough to clear the trees along the shoreline.
And a couple of years ago during spring migration, many had to crash-land when they flew into icing conditions.
https://www.kare11.com/article/weather/loon-fallout-causing-iconic-birds-to-crash-land-in-northern-wisconsin/89-cace01ed-8c8c-4980-babd-cf5045f66e4e
Better at fishing than flying.
I don’t know why this post doesn’t currently show up as a reply to Buffalo_Alice, but that’s what it is.
Loons need a lot of airspeed to generate the lift that they need. Once they are in the air they do well enough - at the only kind of flying they can do - but they don’t have much of any capacity beyond that. I once watched a loon take off from Crystal Lake in Vilas County Wisconsin. The lake is roundish, half a mile long and a third of a mile wide. I can’t recall how much of the lake’s length or width the loon needed for getting airborne, but it was a lot. What I remember clearly, is that it flew three laps around the perimeter of the lake before it got high enough to reach an altitude which was comfortably higher than the trees of the surrounding forest. Roughing out the math, that’s a flight distance of approximately 7 miles, just to get 150 feet off the ground. As I think about it, flying these laps didn’t take as long as would have been needed to fly 7 miles, so I guess the laps were well within the lake’s perimeter, making it a smaller distance, like perhaps a bit under 3 miles. Still that’s the slowest rate of climb in the bird world, I think.
In the Adirondacks loons sometimes get stranded if the land on lakes that are surrounded by tall trees and too small for them to take off on. The same can occur if they wait too long to take off on lakes that are freezing over. There are various rescue groups that will attempt to rescue these birds.
Lots of folks went out and picked up those that crash-landed due to icing, at least as many as they could find, and took them to a local wildlife rehab place to thaw out. They were released several days later.
And when they land, I think their yelling means “Clear the runway, I can’t turn and my flaps are practically useless!”
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