Kayak Koz

I've been on this earth for a while now and it seems to me that there's a lot more rudeness and self righteousness than ever before. Many people feel entitled to do what they want whenever they want regardless of rules or etiquette. It also seems that we're all more prone to anger when we feel we have not been treated properly or feel infringed upon. That's a dangerous combination. I can get just as angry as the next guy, but maybe after all these years I realize it's just not worth it. In my mind there's F-bombs and fists flying but it's more prudent just to walk away and live another day.

It definitely sounds like a summer algae bloom. We get that down here, but when it gets windy for a day or two it tends to bunch up and come to the surface down in the wind blown ends of the lagoon. That's when it gets fun because when you drag a frog over the top the bass come crashing through the gunk to get it. Of course, you think you're pulling in a 5 pounder but when you finally get all the gunk off the bass is barely two pounds.

Boy that's nasty. If you're a man you definitely don't want to go skinny dipping there.

I do some hobbyist woodworking making furniture and other items so after watching that video above I watched more of that guy's videos thinking maybe I'll give lure making a try. Nope. The woodworking is minimal. That guy is an artist. There's no way I could make baits like that. But I do have some blocks of wood in my garage...

For a few years now I've joked here on BR that anyone could put treble hooks on a block of balsa and catch fish. Great to see that someone else had the same idea and went out and did it.

If my Genesis Coupe was connected to an app that notified me every time there was hard acceleration I'd get more notifications than a 12 year old girl when the latest K=Pop album was released.

It makes for an awesome trailer on a chatterbait. It has plenty of action without being too heavy and causing a fast sink. I've caught a ton of bass on the fall with this combo. Blue/black chatterbait with the blue vibe speed craw has been great. By comparison, I have used a larger, blue Havoc Pit Boss trailer on that same chatterbait and rarely get bit.

When are the storms coming on Thursday? If they are arriving mid to late afternoon I'd head out Thursday morning if I could not get out there on Wednesday. I don't mess around when it comes to thunderstorms which can be difficult in the summer here in the south. I was going to rent a kayak today but we were supposed to have storms roll in by noon. Here it is almost 4 pm and they still have not appeared. Bummer.

The longer this goes on the worse it gets for a lot of people. Some doctors are saying that the mental health crisis will be worse than the virus, perhaps not in deaths but in other ways. Personally, this shutdown and other things have begun to take a toll on me as well. But I do make it a point to get out and do something - anything - rather than sit around. That can be hard with a lot of things shut down and being out of work for the time being. I like to fish, but bank fishing like I am accustomed to is almost nonexistent where I live now. So I go out and rent a kayak now and then. I also got into woodworking and made some decent stuff. I hate just going for walks around the neighborhood, but going to a state park and walking is pleasant. My son and I also took up geocaching for something to do. And lastly, despite my age, I've been getting some exercise by pitching (baseball) once again, throwing into a net on my driveway. It is hard not being able to be with friends and other family members. One thing I do STRONGLY suggest is turning off the news and social media. Nothing will ramp up depression faster than being inundated with that stuff every day. Other than getting outdoors and exercising, my suggestion is to find a hobby that makes you concentrate. Woodworking, painting, model building, anything where you have to focus on the task at hand. Heck, make your own lures. The hours will fly by.

I've always said that if you want to catch fish get yourself a light rod, a hook and bobber, and night crawlers. But if you want to catch bass you need to be methodical and have some patience.

Not sure how you do that. Blender, maybe?

Have you ever been to the People of Walmart website? OMG!

Get an acrylic picture holder for the photo and have it engraved. Makes a nice keepsake for a desk or a shelf.

I haven't caught anything on a Whopper Plopper in over a year. It's like the bass had a meeting or sent out a memo.

I've been tempted to fish some of the bigger lakes this summer (Jocassee and Murray) but have opted for the smaller reservoirs where boating is limited to paddle power or trolling motors. We went to Table Rock State Park last Monday and my son and I were the only two kayaks on the water. We went to Croft State Park later in the week and their were only a handful of kayaks and boats on the water. The fishing wasn't great, but the weather was calm and sunny so we at least enjoyed our time on the water. As for Montana, I was there once when I lived in Wyoming for a while. I remember driving across the state line and the highway sign said there was no speed limit but asked that you drive at a reasonable and prudent speed. I think my idea of reasonable and prudent wasn't what they had in mind. ?

That is based upon our current understanding of time and space which is extremely limited.

Thanks, I may give that a try in the future. We passed on Jocassee and fished Croft and Table Rock State Parks instead. Fished the SC Lowcountry this weekend and will be kayaking on Lake Robinson later this week.

But there is no "source". That would imply that time is a constant. The whole point of relativity is based upon the reference point of the observer.

But this where it gets tricky - time is a man made construct. Here's a quick article and vide9s that talk about that: https://www.space.com/29859-the-illusion-of-time.html Then we get into relativity. Imagine a 15-year-old traveling at 99.5 percent the speed of light for five years (from the astronaut's perspective). When the 15-year-old gets back to Earth, according to NASA, he would be only 20 years old. His classmates, however, would be 65 years old. We can even see the effects of relative time on our own world. Did you know that the clocks on GPS satellites don't run at the same speed as clocks on earth? Here's a primer on "time travel" that covers this and more: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/time-travel/en/ Personally, in the long run I don't think time is an issue in reaching far galactic places. I think that the energy required is a bigger issue. I have a cousin who is one of the top aerospace engineers in the world he he can go on about this stuff for days. I certainly don't understand all of what he talks about, but I still find it exciting and fascinating. As far as he is concerned it's not "if" we can solve the physics of deep space travel but "when". That could be thousands (or more) of generations from now. The question is can mankind avoid destroying itself before that happens. That's also why many scientists think the number of deep space faring aliens is probably low - they destroy themselves before figuring it out.

2020 is getting weirder by the minute. Today the NYT runs a story about UFO's and in it states that the government is going to release some documents regarding UFO's. There's a quote from an astrophysicist in the article regarding recovered materials, "We couldn't make it ourselves." He also gave a classified briefing earlier this year on "off-world vehicles not made on this earth." There was another article out there today regarding an interview with an OSU Professor Wendt who among other things had written a paper on UFO's and the possibility of aliens. In it he mentions that ancient civilizations depicted what could be UFO's and aliens and perhaps they have been observing us for quite some time. I'm not a conspiracy theory type of person but I will say that with billions and billions of galaxies with an exponential amount of solar systems and planets I think it's naive to believe that we are the only intelligent or self aware life in existence. I know that some will say that traveling hundreds our thousands of light years is impossible, but I counter with that it is impossible for us. We still have only a rudimentary understanding of the universe. We only know what we can observe in our midst. The laws of physics as we know them may only exist in our corner of the universe. Then there's relativity, space-time. string theory, and the fact that time as we know it is a man made construct. My 14 year old and I talked about this today and he's a little freaked out. Imagine if we are being observed and governments divulge what they know (with proof). With the cat out of the bag will aliens make themselves known? Will they be peaceful or will it be something out of Independence Day or the Twilight Zone Episode "To Serve Man"? What happens to governments? To religion? Heck, to everything? Are we an alien experiment about to be canceled? Were we deliberately seeded here by an alien race? Or was it luck or fate that we evolved and were stumbled upon by aliens? Or is it all BS and we are in fact all alone or have not been noticed by an alien species yet? Anyway, I find this all fascinating. I'm eager to see if the government has any real proof they are willing to divulge and if other governments have information as well.

I don't mean to sound flippant or callous, but nature can be cruel and we are a part of nature. It's not like you were intentionally cruel or careless and on a positive note another one of God's creatures received an easy meal.

We've been using PitchLogic throwing into a net in our driveway but the problem with that is the net is only 30 feet away and that's not far enough for breaking pitches to take effect. We can see spin rates but the ball needs to travel further so the sensors can pick up how much the ball actually breaks. So today we went to a local baseball academy and it was HOT in there. Even with the doors open and fans blowing we were dripping with sweat within minutes. But we still decided to give it a go. After warming up and a few drills we brought out the PitchLogic and worked on breaking balls. It was touch and go because the heat made my 14 year old cranky and gave him a reason to make excuses. But we soldiered on. If you take a look at the picture below you can see the results of two pitches. The one on the left is a curveball while the one on the right was supposed to be a curveball but ended up being a slider. So, what are you looking at here. The yellow arrow is the arm slot and the blue arrow is the direction the ball is breaking. Next is velocity. Both his curve and slider are a bit slower than expected based upon his 75-80 mph fastball. His curve should probably be more in the 58-60 mph range and his slider should be in the 64 mph range. Without getting into to much theory on spin rates (efficient spin vs. more spin) his spin rate is a little low when looking at his Bauer Units (spin rate / velocity). This is probably because breaking balls are still relatively new to him. In the past he threw the occasional curveball but it was not something we practiced because of his age and learning fastball/changeup was more important. But he's at that age where it's time to start practicing breaking balls. Further on down you can see the vertical and horizontal movement. Matt's is an "over the top" pitcher and arm angle is consistently around 1 o'clock so his curve ball will be more 12 to 6 than sweeping. For the pitch on the left his curve broke only 4 inches but dropped 6 inches. For his inadvertent slider it broke horizontally 8 inches. One thing we learned by looking at all of the data is that when he shortened his stride he had better movement on his breaking pitches. You can also see he has a fair amount of rifle spin (football spin) which shows his fingers are coming around the ball instead of over the top of the ball. Making that adjustment will further decrease the backspin (duh) and increase his side spin. There are some drills he will perform to work on that. Once he has that dialed in we will gather more data and possibly work on finger pressure. Anyway, if you're a coach or an involved baseball dad and your player wants to be a pitcher I'd say that so far this seems to be a great tool. If you are just concerned about velocity then skip this and buy a Pocket Radar. But if you want to get into shaping pitches and get into where a pitcher should throw certain pitches (a completely different discussion) then this is a great tool. WARNING: It is important that you understand what spin rates and spin efficiency are all about and don't simply try to increase spin rates. There's a whole science behind it and I myself am still learning. Driveline Baseball and Rapsodo have some great information on this.

I can honestly say that I prefer bank fishing lagoons to kayak fishing on lakes. Granted, my kayaking experience is limited to whatever SOT kayaks are available at the lake I am fishing. The Feel Free Lure was decent, but today out at Table Rock State Park they had a 12 foot Pescador and I was not impressed. I suppose I would feel different if I had a tricked out pedal kayak, but with a rental paddle kayak and no anchor there's a lot of time spent jogging and correcting and not as much time casting. And unless you have a ton of rod holders and rods it's a pain to swap out baits. I mean, first you have to try and get your tackle out from behind you. It's not so easy to do for us old guys. Tell me, why oh why is there not a waterproof compartment sitting right in front of the seat with either built in tackle slots or room to put a few plano boxes? That seems like a no brainer to me. Where I live now there isn't much bank access so I will use kayaks in the future, but I prefer walking while bank fishing and being able to make a heck of a lot more casts per hour on the bank than in the kayak.

With COVID-19 still wreaking havoc across the nation a lot of entertainment venues are either closed or it's too risky for most to go out and enjoy them. Then the other day my son and I were watching a new episode of Dirty Jobs: Rowe'd Trip and they were talking about geocaching. Now I had heard of that term but never really knew what it was all about. We learned some from watching the show, then went to the official website, read some more, then downloaded the app. If you're not familiar with geocaching the app has markers on a map and you travel to the location and look for the cache. It could be the size of a film roll canister or it could be much larger. The size and difficulty of the find are listed in the app. When you find it you write your name on the enclosed log and mark it in your app. Sometimes there are little goodies in there and the idea is you swap one out for something you bring. You don't have to do that. We just add our names to the log. There are other types of geocaches like solving puzzles that give you the location of the cache. You can drive to most of the locations but many state parks also have them along hiking trails. You do have to use a bit of caution. For example, today there was a magnetic cache hidden behind some electrical boxes and meters. There was also a giant wasps nest with a bunch of wasps crawling all over it. Moral of the story - look before you start feeling around. We looked before reaching. Anyway, it can be a fun way to kill some time. There are over 500 geocaches in our area and millions all over the world. We're heading to Table Rock State Park tomorrow to do some kayak fishing but there are also a number of geocaches in the park and we night hike to a few of them.

That softball pitching delivery is funky. I remember in my Senior year of HS (we went on to be State Champions) the softball team had an All American HS pitcher. Our coach challenged every one of us to try and hit off of her. We watched her warm up and after that not one single player dared to try and hit against her. I've been there. My son played for a really bad coach in the 12U summer season. In kid ball I'm not concerned whether my team or the team my son is playing on wins games. All I care about is the coaching and preparing kids for the next level. I remember during one game my son ranged up the middle from SS and because his momentum carried him to the OF he made a spin move to throw out the runner. It's a play we practice. In the middle of the game the coach tells him not to do a spin move. My son said nothing. But when the inning ended he pulled the coach aside and politely told him why the spin throw was the right move in that situation. It is hard for me to step away from coaching him, but we have our workout sessions together. But many times I work with him for 20 minutes and then walk away and let him process the info and make corrections. We also use video and we talk a lot about how things should feel when he swings or pitches. Learning the feel was big because now he'll swing or throw and I'll go to say something and more often than not he says. "I know. I know." I'll as him, "What?" and he'll tell me what happened and what the adjustment is. As far as pitching (or even hitting) mechanics go I will tell you that when instructing I never focus on the big picture or the results during the training session. The focus is always on one specific component of the delivery or swing. When I am instructing Matt always throws or hits into a nearby net because I do not want him focused on where the ball goes, only the drill we are working on. So we might be working on how he breaks his hands when pitching or drives his back knee while hitting. That is the only thing that matters and his goal is to ingrain the proper motion in his mind and body so he can feel the proper move. What I have told him over the years is that we are going to work on small, specific mechanics of hitting, pitching, and fielding and he may not get it or see results right away. But then one day as he matures and his mind and muscles are more in sync every little move will start to come together and he will have a WOW moment. One other thing I learned in one one one coaching with him is to use video. I can tell him all day long that he's tucking his heel on leg left and all day long he can insist that he isn't. Instead of bickering about it I ask him to watch the video and make the needed corrections. Anyway, good luck with your daughter. One more thing I will tell you is that coaching my son completely changed when he turned 12 and became more self aware and more independent. Once we incorporated video into the training and I learned to walk away at times it saved arguments when his teenage emotions wanted to push back just for the sake of his asserting his independence. You may not experience that, but I did and it took a while for ME to learn my lesson.