Kayak Koz

... I tried to stifle a sneeze in the grocery store today and pulled a muscle in my back!

September into early October is always a transition period here in the south. The days are rapidly getting shorter, but the water temps may hold or get cooler based upon the weather. Fishing gets tough, then one day it’s like someone flipped a switch and the pre-winter feeding frenzy begins.

That’s an AI generated image.

Private pilots have now been threatened with arrest and airspace is now restricted in NC.

I think that you and I essentially use FFS the same way, but I will add that I also use it to find baitfish. I also use it to target inactive bass that are holding to structure. I have never, ever used it to chase a bass around the lake. I have also never used it to make 20 or 30 casts trying to get a single fish to bite. But maybe that’s where I’ve got things wrong and how I’m missing out. That seems to be what a lot of the pros do. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be used as opposed to how you and I use it.

It’s only about $120 for the wrap that will cover each side plus another $20 for the cutting tape. I may or may not give it a try. I haven’t decided yet.

I can’t believe the videos and stories coming out of TN and NC. I’m at a loss for words.

So, after being awake and working or commuting for about 30 hours straight I get home, sleep for two hours, then get a call from work - there’s a propane leak. I’ve been running that hotel for almost 4 years and we don’t use propane. It turns out that years ago the hotel fireplace ran off of propane and was later converted to gas. When the did that, they did not reclaim the propane or remove the tanks. The tanks were in a remote part of the property and covered with debris. During the storm, a branch fell on the pressure release valve allowing gas to escape. So I make the 40 minute drive back to the hotel and meet the fire department. We call propane techs, finally get a hold of one, and he’s more than an hour away. The call is made to release the gas while the fire department sprays water over it. Luckily, it was windy and helped dissipate the gas. Four hours later we get the all clear and can reopen the hotel. I stuck around for another hour to help check in the line of guests. I’m finally back home, but now I’m overtired and can’t sleep. Plus, if I got to sleep now I’ll probably screw up my sleep schedule for a few days. But I will take tomorrow off unless we have another crisis. It’s just too bad that it will probably be too windy to head out on my kayak. I guess yard work it is.

Glad you’re OK. I was thinking about you and your family last night when I was looking at the Georgia Power outage maps and saw there were a lot of outages in your area. So far all is good at the hotel and home. The only worry now is trees uprooting in the waterlogged ground. I have power but no internet.

It looks like we will get away unscathed here. It’s approaching 4 am and still no big winds. We may have a little flooding to contend with, but even the forecasted rain totals are off.

If any of you in our BR community need to flee go ahead and reach out to me and I’ll see if we have availability at the hotel. Hopefully we don’t lose power here. And if you come, bring a fishing pole and fish off of our docks when the weather clears. It might be a lousy time to fish, but it’s fishing!

Stay safe, buddy. If you end up needing a place to stay reach out to me. Hopefully either my house or hotel will have power.

So far, so good. Thanks for asking. It’s been raining all day, but no hard rain yet. Winds are supposed to pick up within the next few hours with gusts in the 40’s. But between 2 am and 6 am we’re supposed to have winds between 60 and 73 mph. That’s also when we expect the spin off tornadoes. I’m at my hotel for the time being. Hopefully things go well here and I can get out of here in the morning to check my house. In the meantime, I can drop in on my Echo Show and see what’s going on in my living room. Stay safe everyone.

I hope all of you in Florida and South Georgia stay safe and if possible get out of town. Here in the Lake Oconee / Lake Sinclair area the forecast says we’ll be getting 70 mph winds. It looks like we may end up in the NE quadrant of the storms and that’s usually tornado spawning grounds. I’ll be staying at my hotel in case there are any issues and half of my staff is going to take shelter there as well. We’ve prepped and have a contingency plan to operate the hotel 2-3 days without power. I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it’s a rural area so you never know. Ironically, my two 100Ah LifePo kayak batteries may come into play. I can connect them to a UPC to run a computer and power one of our routers for our fiber internet. With my Noco charger I can recharge them in my Bronco. The next 48 hours are going to be interesting. Stay safe out there.

I was wondering if any GA kayak anglers wanted to start an informal club. We all meet at a lake together, fish for a while, then head out for lunch or dinner. Maybe kick in $5 - $10 every now and then for a big fish of the day prize. I live in the Sinclair / Oconee region and don’t mind driving an hour or two to a lake. I was thinking we could also fish some PFA’s or electric only lakes like Varner along with big lakes. Maybe in the summer months when the days are longer we could have a weeknight event. If you’re interested, comment below along with some lakes you think that we should fish.

Most of the time I fish alone. In fact, often times I need that to decompress. Have you thought about starting a kayak fishing club in your area? You could get together and fish for fun or all pitch in $5 for the big bass of the day. You could post here on BR in the fishing clubs forum. Heck, maybe I’ll do that and start a GA club for winter fishing once the tournament season ends.

We don’t have all of that deck space to sprawl out and tie on new baits 😀 On my AP 120, that’s where my forward facing rod holders really shine. On my old kayak I had to hold the rod between my legs, prop it up against me, or lay it down to tie on baits. Now I just drop it in the front rod holder.

I contacted them via Facebook but have yet to receive a response. My price tag on the current version would be about $275. I bet the plastic they use gets very brittle in the winter. I took it off yesterday and I will no longer use it for day trips. But I will use it for extended trips, especially if I plan on sleeping in my truck,

I didn’t fish this event even thought it’s one of my home lakes as being a co-angler is no fun with so many boaters fishing off shore with FFS. This was a two-day event and normally there are 130 boats entered for Oconee. This year there were only 74. That’s pathetic for a Super Tournament event. The fishing was bad as well. The winning 2-day weight for the boater was only 25 pounds. Fifteenth place - a money position - was only 11 pounds. It seems that participation in MLF events is really tanking this year. With that, it seems odd that they plan to add more Phoenix and Toyota Series events next year.

I love vegetables and they are a staple of my diet. Most of my meals are a variety of vegetables stir fried in a little olive oil with either diced pork, chicken, or beef. i keep it fresh by rotating different seasonings at each meal.

My crate holds six rods and my AP 120 kayak has two built in rod holders behind me and two forward facing rod holders up front. I prefer to bring 7 or 8 rods but I occasionally bring nine. I usually keep me net in one of the built in rear rod holders, then I put it in the left front rod holder when I measure the fish. This acts as a barrier if the fish flops off my Ketch board. The other front rod holder is only used when I land a fish, tie on a new bait, or I grabbing something to eat or drink. Otherwise, all rods stay behind me. Baits are always hooked or clipped to prevent tangling. And I always use my rod clips or leashes so I don’t lose one in the water.

I received the rod box and crossbars the other day. I also bought a 3-step stool to make it easier to load and unload. For $600 it seems pretty flimsy. It also takes a little bit of jostling the top to get it to lock. I brought seven rods this morning and they fit just fine. It has room for one or maybe two more. There was no wind noise or buffeting sound, but holy cow it impacted my gas mileage. I normally get 31.5 - 32 mpg, but with the rod box I’m getting just over 26mpg. I don’t know why they went with a flat front instead of a wedge shape. It serves a purpose and is useful, but it’s not worth the $1,100 it cost me for the box, crossbars, and the crossbar mount. It comes off easily, so I probably won’t use it anymore for day fishing trips. But it will come in handy for overnight and multi day trips when I’m bringing luggage or choose to sleep in the truck.

The more I dig into this, the more I think BASS brought this controversy upon themselves because of their lack of rules on electronics. What I mean is that BASS doesn’t have any rules limiting FUTURE technology. Before Livescope, most people knew it was eventually coming. BASS could have a rule banning it until they got a chance to see what it was all about. Even now, there are no roadblocks on future technology except for FFS transducer models. But that doesn’t prevent Garmin from launching a software update to improve FFS. Or what if the come out with a new head unit with improved software and AI that allows for species and size identification? BASS is leaving themselves open to even greater controversy.

A couple of things here. First, am I correct in thinking that you have an older GoPro without voice command? Second, you can get by with a smaller video card by setting your GoPro to loop every 15 minutes. This way you overwrite those inactive periods. While it’s looping, when you then tell it to record or hit the record button it won’t loop over that section when you stop and start again. It creates a new starting point for the loop.

It's a tough call. Even if I get the hotel staff hired and trained, I'm out of sponsor money for the year so it's all out of pocket. Next year it will be a little easier as my now independent hotel will be a franchised property with a major brand and then my lodging costs are only $35 a night.