A Day Out{side} Kayaking With Kids

Where’s daddy going to sit at

*laughs*

That’s my seat, that’s

where I’m supposed to sit.

Yeah, we put another seat in the kayak.

Hey, guys, how’s it going?

My name is John Deshauteurs

and I’m here with my son Liam.

And we’re going to go kayaking

for the first time today.

This will be Liam’s

first time on the water

and this will be my first time

kayaking with a child.

So I want to show you all our experience

in this episode of Go Outside.

I’m here in my Jackson mayfly today.

Now, this is a single kayak.

They have tandem kayaks for this,

but this just happens to be

the kayak that I have.

So this is the seat that comes

with the kayak, the Jackson mayfly.

And I took another seat out

of another Jackson

mayfly and set it up here

so you can see he’s comfortably sitting.

He’s comfortable.

So you guys come over here, come

check out the kayak and we’ll show you

all how we have it rigged up.

Oh, no.

I’m going to show you all of these ropes.

So as you’re sitting here,

you can grab onto this.

If you get if you feel like

you’re getting spooked or whatever,

you can grab onto that.

You can hold on to that.

All right.

You go with that.

You fill in spokes.

Hold on to that.

All right, guys.

So like I said, this is

be our first time

out on the water together.

There is plenty of stuff

on the kayak for safety.

And that’s the first thing

I want to talk about.

Case, anything were to happen.

If your child is to go overboard,

if for some reason

there’s a communication, lack

of communication, failure

of communication

between you and your child

and the situation happens

where your child is to go overboard,

you want to make sure

that they are protected .

As you can see, Liam is already

wearing his life jacket.

We’re not even on the water yet.

You don’t want to be on the water

with your child’s life

jacket, not on them

having their their life

jacket in the kayak.

As you can see, I’m wearing mine as well.

Having the life jacket

in the kayak, but not on you.

Serves no purpose.

So make sure you have a life jacket

that you can comfortably wear

and that your child can wear

for long periods of time

while you’re on the water.

Secondly, this is my tournament.

This is my fishing.

This is my just about every day

rig on my kayak.

I haven’t changed anything but

put a seat right here in the bow.

I already have a lot of rope

that is tied to the kayak

to where in case I need to throw a line,

I can do whatever I need to do.

That’s something else I want to touch on.

We’re here on the shallow

end of this little lake.

You want to stay on the shallow end,

make sure they get their

sea legs under them before you go out

and start

venturing off away from the truck,

from the you know, from

from from shore, not too far.

So first thing’s first,

in case your child is to fall off.

First, the first line of defense

is his life jacket.

He has his life jacket on him now.

OK, he’s got his life jacket on him.

And in case you need to throw

something to him,

he’s got you got some stuff

right here on the kayak.

You know,

you can throw him a rope or something.

If you can’t just reach out and grab him,

you can throw something to them.

With that being said,

you know, the seats here,

if you know, depending on

what kind of seat you put in your kayak,

there’s a lot of different options

you can put out there.

Some of my buddies just put their kids

straight on the deck.

Just depends on what you do where

your child’s comfort level is

make sure your seat

strapped down as well.

You don’t want, you know, the child

moving around and then the seat falls out

and you want to make sure that seat

to secure it to the kayak.

Just put some straps on there,

whatever it is you got to do.

However, your kayak is laid out,

find a way to strap your seat down.

if you put a seat in the kayak.

All right, guys,

another thing that you want to consider

when you’re putting

your child in front of you.

You want to consider your range of motion

if you’re paddling a kayak.

What I mean by range of motion,

you want to be able to sit in your seat

comfortably, your legs,

and be able to extend out

where you need them to.

And you can actually get

full strokes on your paddle

without interfering

with anything if they’ve gotten their

little bubble right here.

You want to be able to comfortably

paddle your kayak and not be tapping

it seat every time,

because that can get pretty annoying.

Never, ever, ever.

Like I said, I’ve got

a bunch of rope here.

I’ve got a bunch of straps here.

Never tie tether,

whatever leash, never tie

an individual strapping individual.

Whatever your terminology is,

you never want to anchor tie.

Strap your child

anyone to a kayak

in case that kayak rolls over.

That person may get stuck under the kayak

and that leash, tether rope, whatever,

may actually hold them underwater

and they may panic.

It’s only a few short seconds, guys.

Never tie any one to the kayak.

If they fall, let them fall

Let the lifejacket

Do what it’s supposed to do.

Never tie anyone to a kayak.

Let’s go get on the water.

You ready?

All right. Let’s go.

Happy.

Good deal.

We want you happy.

All right.

Here we go.

Bye Mommy!!

Guys, it’s really important

that you know how your kayak rolls.

As you can see, Liam is six years old,

so he’s excited to

put his hands on everything.

He’s leaning over

touching the water right now.

You want to make sure you’re high up.

Your kayak is stable enough

to where if they do decide

to play in the water and do some leaning

and moving around,

that you’re not having to deal

with any of that tipping.

So just make sure you

got a good, stable kayak

owie.

All right, guys, as you can see,

obviously this paddling

is too big for Liam.

But

like I said, he’s six years old

and he wants to put his

hands on everything.

We need to go ahead

and get him a paddle that he can

he can paddle around comfortably.

I want you to stand up

show everybody you can stand up

here.

Take this paddle.

I got it.

And throw it in the water.

All right.

Perfect example.

You’ve got your child out in the water

and he throws this paddle

and you’re trying to figure out

how to get the paddle back.

You always, always, always

tether your paddle to your kayak

just like that.

We

all remember like an excavator.

Which way is the bucket?

Which way is it cut?

Liam,

remember your blades?

Look at your blades.

You remember like an excavator

if you want to dig.

What’s that? Do you want to dig with?

There you go.

All right, guys,

we hope you’ve enjoyed today’s video.

Like I said, this

has just been another

episode of Go Outside.

We wanted you to experience this with us.

And if you could learn anything,

if you’re wanting to get your kids

outside in the kayak,

hopefully you were able to pick

something up from today’s video.

Y’all make sure put your life jackets

on, stay on the shallow end

if you’ve got your kids out with you.

Make sure if you’re going to be out

for long periods of time that you got

some hydration for the kids.

Listen to them.

Listen to their moods

and y’all go enjoy yourselves.

We’ll see you later.

Rounds like.

Yeah, there you go.