Sakana or Pescado??

Ampersand

Ampersand

New member
Heyoo - just moved to CO, rebuilding my quiver and deciding on the first buy.

Obviously the Sakana is more versatile and will eventually end up with both but prob only one for this season. Have a pregnant wife + toddler so won’t be able to get in as many days as I’d like so would you recommend the Pescado first to intentionally hunt pow/storm days or the better versatility from the Sakana to kick things off? Anyone with Pescado experience that can attest to its versatility on soft groomers if I go for the big fish?
 
Moved to CO as in moved to Denver or moved west of the tunnel (or elsewhere)? Cause pow days are not really a thing unless you want to experience great agony if you in Denver.
 
14338718:ericforman said:
Moved to CO as in moved to Denver or moved west of the tunnel (or elsewhere)? Cause pow days are not really a thing unless you want to experience great agony if you in Denver.
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Sadly not west of the tunnel so this is solid intel. First time not living on the east coast or deep SoCal so all of CO is still a fantasy land of endless powder and fat planks in my mind haha.
 
14338714:BrandoComando said:
What about the Season Forma? The width is halfway between the Sakana and Pescado
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That’s a solid suggestion - I trust Pollard pretty blindly as a ski designer but I just haven’t known anyone who’s actually ridden them? Also felt like at 183 and 118 under foot that might be the worst of both worlds + make it harder to round out the quiver later?
 
14338723:Ampersand said:
Sadly not west of the tunnel so this is solid intel. First time not living on the east coast or deep SoCal so all of CO is still a fantasy land of endless powder and fat planks in my mind haha.
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Mmmm yea unless you want to a) get in front of the storm and stay up in the mountains or b) fear for your life / sit in traffic for 8 hours on what should be a 1.5 hour drive my guess is you won't have need for a 125 underfoot ski. Sakana seems like a dope choice for day tripping standard to 90th percentile conditions (which are epic, CO snow is basically always good because it doesn't rain and melt / freeze like the east coast).

That being said, you should see what other people say who own the pescado - maybe it is fine :)

edit: this changed a bit if you can take off random weekdays. Then I could see getting a fattie if you just wanted to hunt weekday dumps

**This post was edited on Oct 29th 2021 at 7:11:20pm
 
You will enjoy it. Trust me. This might be like a feeler out year for you though in terms of pass, gear, etc.

14338723:Ampersand said:
Sadly not west of the tunnel so this is solid intel. First time not living on the east coast or deep SoCal so all of CO is still a fantasy land of endless powder and fat planks in my mind haha.
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Can’t speak for the pescado but I’ll give my review of the sakana -

im 5’10 ~150lbs on the 174. Personally I think the 106 is enough waist to ski most pow days in the wasatch.

It’s a really fun ski in the deep and soft, low angle pow, and on soft groomers. Also a blast in spring corn. Really easy to slash around. Fun sidecut and they rebound pretty well out of turns.

I find it pretty easy to overpower (I have K108s as daily driver), so I wouldn’t recommend it as a charger. But dudes like Jonnie Merrill seem to have no problem going huge on it.

I don’t find the ski very fun on harder conditions as it gets tossed around a lot due to being relatively lightweight.

I’ve read it somewhere so I can’t take credit for this, but someone summed up the ski nicely - since it’s a bit easy to overpower it makes you choose your lines a bit differently. Rather than blasting down whatever’s in front of you, you take your time painting and sketching different lines down the mountain (very Pollard-esque). So could be really fun to use on mellower days with your young’n and wife.

be prepared to have the entire lift line ogling your boards haha.

tldr; super fun ski for soft snow and spring corn, not a heavy charger. Great one to have in the quiver but not a quiver-of-one.
 
Very solid review + definitely appreciate it! Yeah figure maybe best to do something like the black crows atris or elan ripstick that has a bit more chargeability with the Sakana for a more well rounded quiver.

14339328:Squeenerd said:
Can’t speak for the pescado but I’ll give my review of the sakana -

im 5’10 ~150lbs on the 174. Personally I think the 106 is enough waist to ski most pow days in the wasatch.

It’s a really fun ski in the deep and soft, low angle pow, and on soft groomers. Also a blast in spring corn. Really easy to slash around. Fun sidecut and they rebound pretty well out of turns.

I find it pretty easy to overpower (I have K108s as daily driver), so I wouldn’t recommend it as a charger. But dudes like Jonnie Merrill seem to have no problem going huge on it.

I don’t find the ski very fun on harder conditions as it gets tossed around a lot due to being relatively lightweight.

I’ve read it somewhere so I can’t take credit for this, but someone summed up the ski nicely - since it’s a bit easy to overpower it makes you choose your lines a bit differently. Rather than blasting down whatever’s in front of you, you take your time painting and sketching different lines down the mountain (very Pollard-esque). So could be really fun to use on mellower days with your young’n and wife.

be prepared to have the entire lift line ogling your boards haha.

tldr; super fun ski for soft snow and spring corn, not a heavy charger. Great one to have in the quiver but not a quiver-of-one.
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Ill toss in my .02

I had the 181 Sakana, ski'd probably 25 days on it. I'm 180lbs.

I found them to be pretty fun carvers, even ran some Nastar gates on them...(thus exposing the shortcoming of a 100+ ski's ability to transition quickly edge to edge.)

I found them to be pretty un-inspiring in anything more than about 6" of snow. The side cut and overprounounced tip shovel IMO made them prone to hooking into turns and required quite a bit of nursing them.

My takeaway was that if I were to do this style ski again, I'd get the Pescado for ultra deep and stick with more of an ARV 106 'ish type ski for the mid range versatility.
 
Pescados might be my favorite ski ever. The are pow surfers, aka not chargers, that will make you fall in love with big powder turns at speed. Alternatively, they are a lot of fun a soft groomers as well. The side cut make them carve better than you would think for that fat of a ski, plus the noses are soft enough for nose butters.

The aren't that fun in chop and moguls tho. But if you can rip pow in the morning and send groomers in the afternoon, you dont need to grab a second pair of skis imo
 
14339654:freeski_Shaggy said:
Pescados might be my favorite ski ever. The are pow surfers, aka not chargers, that will make you fall in love with big powder turns at speed. Alternatively, they are a lot of fun a soft groomers as well. The side cut make them carve better than you would think for that fat of a ski, plus the noses are soft enough for nose butters.

The aren't that fun in chop and moguls tho. But if you can rip pow in the morning and send groomers in the afternoon, you dont need to grab a second pair of skis imo
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The groomer performance is definitely what I was curious about but if they can still be a good time there then definitely still interested! Charging bumps/crud isn’t my style anyways so don’t really care if they’re the tool for that (surfy/playful + popping off bumps and side hits is my jam).

Just honestly never been on a ski that wide on hard snow so don’t have any reference for how it would feel carving them.
 
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