Kayak Koz

I fish out of a kayak, so it might be a little different. In my Bronco I bring two 27 gallon storage tubs. One contains some tackle trays and an array of soft plastics. The other carries a tool bag, jack stands (if my trailer gets a flat), and miscellaneous spare wiring and parts. In my Yakima rod box I bring 9 rods, but when I'm on the water I bring between 5 and 7 rods. On my kayak I have 4 tackle trays in the storage next to my seat. In my BlackPak crate I have 5 speed bags and maybe one additional tackle tray. These are set up with what my experience or research says I need for that lake. After the first day of practice I may swap out some baits with what is in my truck. That continues on subsequent practice days. For me, bringing too many baits or too many rods can lead to "paralysis of analysis." By tournament day I really want to narrow things down to as little gear as possible.

This is where I changed my approach lately. It's been the dilemma of "Should I stay or should I go?" But my approach now is that I'm looking for five big bites, not to catch 10 fish. I also realize that my kayak isn't built for run and gun, so sometimes it means staying in what I know to be a productive area and waiting for the bite window. This is really, really hard for me to do because when my spots or patterns don't produce I would get flustered, abandon my plan, and start casting everywhere. It paid off in my last tournament and I should have had a dang blue trophy. If I had more speed, it might be different and I could run and gun or at least hit more locations that matched my pattern.

So far I've only seen small ones there. I had one swim beside me for a while earlier this year. I really like to push into the weeds and sticks and flip and pitch, but I chicken out there after a while wondering if a big gator is around.

Nice write up. Tournament fishing is a whole other ballgame. Tick, tick, tick... It can make you doubt what you know about fishing. Tick, tick, tick... It's also a huge mind game. Tick, tick, tick... Keep at it.

While the upfront price is steep, unlike a Senko, you can catch 50+ fish on the elastomer urchin baits.

I headed out to Ocmulgee PFA today where the fishing can be tough, but there's a lot of 6 and 7 pounders in there. Got to the ramp and noticed that one of my Garmin protective screen covers is missing. Bummer because I always make sure they are snapped on correctly before I head out. Then I noticed that I forgot my cooler. Big, big mistake. So instead of fooling with the heat, I fished for only a few hours. I had one big blow up on a frog, but she missed the bait. Then, my trolling motor battery died - again. Swapped it out with my electronics battery which is also a 100Ah battery. Everything was charged to capacity last night, so I'm guessing I've got bad cells. There is so much submerged flooded timber in this PFA that I rely on FFS to navigate this lake and without electronics I packed up and headed home. I could already feel the heat. I've been thinking about packing it in for the summer. I've been wanting to sell my kayak and trailer to buy a new kayak and trailer so this might be the time to do that.

It took me a while to find the right hat to keep cool. My fishing pants and shirt were moisture wicking and kept me cool, but my head would get super hot and sweat. What did the trick for me is the Kast King UPF50 Boonie. It has just the right amount of ventilation and does an outstanding job of reducing the temperature and sweat on my head.

Back when I started fishing on my pedal kayak I had the YakAttack CellBlok and the over the side transducer arm. It was easy on, easy off. You can even mount your fish finder on top of the CellBlok. The only issue I had was cavitation of the transducer arm, even when just pedaling at 2.5 - 3mph. Back then I had a Lowrance 5 inch and then the Helix 7. My suggestion is top opt for the Helix 7 with both down and side imaging. Humminbird maps are also great. That being said, I run dual Garmin UHD 93's on my current rig and occasionally add my Helix 7 if I'm on a lake where I have the StrikeMaster map card.

That's essentially what I do. I'm throwing to structure and cover along the bank so I don't feel the need to point FFS in that direction. So I'll point FFS off the bow, directed at whatever nearest ledge or transition is around.

Very nice! After all of the work I put in on my trailer it looks like I'm going to sell it and buy a new Fish TX trailer, either the Lefty model or the Mini Maxx Ike model. The reason is that by next tournament season I plan to sell my AP120 (with a ton of add ons) and buy an XTR 130 and most likely the Garmin Force Current trolling motor.

We're looking at temps in the low 90's and a heat index of 104 all weekend. That being said, I do have some moisture wicking hoodies and long pants that keep me protected and actually pretty comfortable out there in the heat.

I'm sorry, but there's a 1/2 inch open mouth penalty for those pictured on the Ketch board 😀 I do find it amazing, though, that when I go out my goal is to catch a full bag plus 2 or 3 and one big bite an hour you're out there catching 54.

Thanks. Once again, the kayak has won out. Sometime in the near future I plan to sell my current rig and trailer along with the upgrades and buy a Bonafide XTR 130. I'll probably include my older UHD93 Garmin unit and a GT54 transducer as well as all of the wiring and hub and probably one 100Ah battery. I'll probably equip it with the new Garmin Force Current stern mount kayak motor. There's an outside chance I may put a bow mount Terrova on instead. The Garmin is Force expensive and so is the new trailer that I will need to pull this rig.

That's the best way to rig them, although some people like them on a swing head jig. That being said, Coike's are expensive. Since the fish is likely to die with the bait and hook in there, I would have retrieved the bait.

If I'm moving forward and engage spot lock after the strike and setting the hook, spot lock will move me backwards to go back to the GPS coordinates where I set spot lock. That bit of moving backwards helps pick up any slack in the line as I reel in. It's only for a moment, but it helps to reduce slack when the fish pulls the kayak or doubles back towards the kayak.

In my opinion, getting any type of hook set it tougher on a kayak - especially with bigger fish - because the kayak is easily pulled by a bigger fish. That’s why whenever I hook up I engage spot lock to try and mitigate that.

I'm going to say 3 pounds even. 🤣 That's a joke. I know from even recent experience that losing what appears to be a good fish is frustrating. The good news is that you have a location and technique that worked. I'm sure that you'll be back there soon and figure it out.

Terrazzo tile looks nice 😁😁 There are all kinds of rubber, EVA foam, and Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate decking rolls and squares.There's even pour-in-place rubber. I imagine that other than cost, the biggest concern would be keeping the deck as cool as possible in the sun.

If there's vegetation at the top, I love to start and stop a frog over those mats and have the bass blow up on it. Just make sure you're using a heavy rod with 50+ pound braid because you'll be hauling in a lot of grass with each catch. Also, don't set the hook too soon. Let that bass turn and go back down and clear the mat. You're hookup rate probably won't be that good, but you'll have a blast. The other option is a heavy punching set up.

The USPS has been nothing but problems for me. I've had multiple times when they refused to deliver because they said the box was too heavy. If they accept the package, the need to deliver it. I've also had numerous instances at work where they said they could not deliver the package because the business was closed. Never mind that I run hotels that are always open 24 hours a day.

I think that a lot of people forget to try and fish near the ramp.

OK - so here's the kicker to my "bad luck" weekend. As I mentioned, I lost two fish at the boat that would have easily put me in the top 5. But I also had entered the Native No Limits tournament that pays $1,000 each hour for the biggest bass. I caught the second biggest bass of the tournament, but the guy who caught the biggest of the tournament did it the same hour that I did so I got nothing.

I literally had a 3 minute ride to my first waypoint at the Santee Cooper even and I caught all of my fish in that area. I headed straight out from the ramp across the Taw Caw creek channel.

For me, Livescope is a double edged sword. It's easy for an amateur like my to get too caught up in it. And what you get out of it is what you put into it. I've listed to podcasts were pros stated it took them hundreds of hours of playing with it to understand it, and the majority of hours they were not actually fishing. Yes, it's really cool to see bass sitting on deep water timber, toss a worm out there, and watch them eat it as it sinks. Or see a bass out there and watch it turn and hit your minnow. What I should do is use it more to fish offshore more often, but I'd rather crash the banks and power fish. I use FFS more to find structure more than find fish. For example, I rarely used it last week and when I did it was to help see the edge of the hydrilla. I do use it a lot to look under docks. I keep telling myself I need to go out there a bunch of days with no fishing rods and just work on finding fish offshore with FFS, but I never do it. What I'm getting at is that I don't rely on FFS. But maybe I should learn to be an expert at it and rely on it more.

Awesome!