Fishing Chair

If you're an experienced angler, you know how important your tackle is to a successful fishing trip; choosing the right tackle can make or break the trip and it can determine if you catch that monster fish, or go home with nothing at all.  OK, so the fishing chair isn't in the same league as your rod, lures, line etc., but it can be really important. 

If you love to fish, then staying out all day at the lake or river can be one of the most satisfying things you can do.  However, if you're not lucky enough to have access to a boat to use regularly, you're faced with two options: Stand up all day or invest in a fishing chair.  Standing up all day, as you're no doubt aware, can get uncomfortable.

However, if you choose the wrong chair, you can ruin your whole trip, and something that should be enjoyable becomes simply...  Uncomfortable.  It's something that, if you really love the sport, you'll use for hours at a time, so it should be chosen wisely!

There are many fishing chairs on the market, and your choice of chair will largely be dependent on the type of fishing you do – do you need a carp fishing chair, an ice fishing chair, a carp fishing bed chair? Plenty of cheap, generic chairs for any type of fishing are available. However, it can sometimes be beneficial to buy a (slightly) more expensive specialist chair for a specific type of fishing. For example, your needs when carp fishing will clearly be different than fishing for trout or fly fishing for pike, and specific carp fishing chairs will often be the best choice.

Firstly, and extremely importantly, choose a chair that's comfortable.  As mentioned above, you might be using this chair for hours at a time, and if it's not comfortable, you won't want to use it.  Check that it's got good quality and thick padding.  You'll also want to ensure that the padding is easy to clean and resistant to moisture.

Having said this, ensure the whole chair is as resistant as possible to the elements.  Ideally you'll want something that's powder coated.  Powder coating is the process of applying a powder to a metal such as aluminium and making it into a “skin” (most fishing chairs will be made of materials such as aluminium because it's lightweight; you wouldn't want to carry a heavy chair all the way to the water).  The powder is stuck to the metal electrostaticly and then heat is used to make it go solid on the metal.  This makes a hard and protective barrier on the metal and reduces the risk of rust.

Have a think about the types of places you'll be fishing.  Are they mostly flat?  Rocky?  A mixture?  If the area's mostly flat, you should be fine choosing a chair with static legs.  However, if the areas you fish are not flat, for just a little extra cost, you're able to (and should) buy a chair with adjustable legs.  If you're sitting on unstable ground and the legs aren't properly adjusted (or worse, if the chair doesn't have adjustable legs), it's just a matter of time before the chair slips and you injure yourself.  Let's face it, even the flat areas where you'll be fishing won't be completely flat, so adjustable legs are usually advisable.

Most fishing chairs will have large bottoms to their legs, which mean you'll have a better grip when you're sitting the chair in mud or any ground that's not completely firm.  However, some have larger ends to the legs than others.  Really, for safety reasons, when sitting on non-firm ground, the bigger the legs, the better.

Apart from the main important points above, there are all kind of useful extras in a lot of fishing chairs.  Cup holders and rod holders can be very useful.  What can be even more useful for the ice fishermen among you is that, if you buy a higher-end ice fishing chair, you'll often get heated pads to maintain your body heat as much as possible.  This can make it a little more comfortable when you're sitting in the cold atmosphere for hours.  Even if your not an ice fisherman, in the winter chairs with heated pads can really improve your fishing trip.

The cost of chairs range from as little as £20 to £30 (for the lower-end non-adjustable chairs) to well over £100 for the all-singing variety.