Is pedal drive necessary

[SoCalEDC]

No Not necessary. Lots of guys on here are paddlers and put in tons of miles and catch alot of fish.

IMO its personal preference. The example of paddling you got from paddling your buddies pedal drive kayak is not representative of what its like to paddle a kayak that was designed to be paddled. A kayak that was made for use in the ocean like the tridents or the krakens, tarpons, etc. are VERY fast and have a ton of glide which means you can stop paddling and "coast" for a ways between strokes. In addition to that, they have alot of rocker so that they can handle big swells and waves.

FWIW I just sold my outback and ordered a long narrow fiberglass paddle kayak because i found that my outback was slower and less convenient than I had hoped it would be when I originally moved from a paddle to pedals.

There is a bunch of other factors that go into which is the better fit for your style of fishing and what you want to do.