Quote:
Originally Posted by BassYakR
90% if the places I kayak fish are waist deep..... so ill take my chances with a PFD... I can swim or hand on to my kayak... Only thing that could (knock) me out would be a boat hitting me... then I have more issues to worry about.
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Younger guys tend to see themselves as invincible and this contributes to the level of risk. Younger guys also tend to assume that only one thing will go wrong at a time, when the reality is that multiple unforeseen events contribute to most fatal accidents.
Wind and current conditions can put the kayak in deeper water, separate the angler from the yak, and considerably complicate swimming to safety. Lots of factors can contribute to diminished swimming ability other than getting hit by another boat including heart attack, ischemic stroke, heat stroke, dehydration, exhaustion, entanglement in fishing line or anchor line, current conditions, insect or jellyfish sting, clothing, injury, allergy, etc.
I fish mostly in a 16 ft V hull aluminum boat and occasionally in 20-21 ft bay boats. I always wear a PFD, because I want to be prepared for the day everything goes wrong, not just the day when the only thing wrong is that I'm in the water. The common factor in fatal accidents is that the deceased left the dock fairly certain they were not going to die that day. My cognizance of my mortality combined with my desire not to die young in an avoidable boating accident make me more careful. Review of boating accidents also shows that the three biggest contributors to fatal accidents on the water are (in order) failure to wear PFDs, excessive speed, and underestimating conditions/overestimating capabilities.