Why I Finally Opened My Wallet for the Wilderness Systems Recon 120

I didn't come to kayak fishing in a straight line. This is the story of how I got here, why I finally spent real money on a boat, and what the Wilderness Systems Recon 120 actually is. The full on-water review comes after I've put more hours on it.

How I ended up here

It started with my wife and me just wanting to be out on the water together. We picked up two used Wilderness Systems boats for a great price — a Tarpon 140 and a Pungo 120 — and that was the whole plan. No rods, no tackle, no agenda. Just the two of us paddling, chasing sunsets, and getting away from the noise. Some of my favorite evenings still look exactly like that.

Then, a few years back, I made the mistake — or the best decision of my outdoor life, depending on how you look at it — of bringing a rod along and fishing off the Tarpon 140. That was it. I fell in love with kayak fishing, hard. The kind of love where you start checking tides before you check the weather, and you're up before the alarm without complaining about it.

The Tarpon treated me well for a good while. But it's a paddle-only boat, and my favorite grounds sit about two miles from the launch. Two miles out, fish hard all day, two miles back — under nothing but arm power. By the time I got home I'd spent more energy commuting than fishing. There had to be a better way.

Why the Recon 120

So I did my homework. I researched a stack of fishing kayaks, weighed the options, and finally pulled the trigger on the Recon 120. The deciding factor wasn't the deck or the seat or brand loyalty — it was that I intended to mount a trolling motor on it and let the boat do the two-mile haul for me, saving my arms for the fishing. (That trolling motor is an Amazon buy, and it's getting its own review down the road.)

I'll be straight with you: this one made me open my wallet. My first two boats were used and cheap, the way I like it. The Recon was the exception — real money, the kind of purchase I had to think about. And I haven't regretted it once.

"My first two boats were used and cheap. The Recon was the exception — and the one I'd buy again."

On the water

[PLACEHOLDER: your real on-water experience — stability when standing, how it tracks and paddles, how it handles wind and chop on the bay, how the seat feels after a full day, and how it does once the trolling motor is mounted.]

• [PLACEHOLDER: standing stability on the flats]
• [PLACEHOLDER: tracking and paddling feel]
• [PLACEHOLDER: storage and staying dry in real conditions]

Where it struggles

[PLACEHOLDER: the honest downsides for how you fish — at roughly 95 pounds bare, loading and moving it solo is a real consideration, and it's a premium boat. Add your own gripes once you've lived with it.]

Watch the field test

[PLACEHOLDER: intro to your video once it's filmed — the launch, the trolling-motor setup, and the boat in action.]

The bottom line

[PLACEHOLDER: your honest call once you've fished it — who the Recon 120 is for, who should skip it, and whether you'd buy it again with your own money. Keep it real; that's the whole point of this site.]

Disclosure: Paddlefire Outdoors may earn a commission from links in this review, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend gear we've actually used in the field. Some gear in this review was provided by the manufacturer; our opinions are our own.

Jim Richards

Founder & Lead Tester

Paddler, angler, and full-time gear nerd. I put every product through real adventures before it ever gets a score — no desk reviews here.