Kayak Koz

One of the guys from BASS who was involved in the ruling was on BTL yesterday and discussed this. States have their own rules on A rigs. That’s the issue there.

I dropped a decent penny fishing the Bassmaster Kayak Guntersville event with 4 days of hotels, travel, food, and tournament fees. I did have $300 in sponsorship money to offset it a little. I also fished one MLF event as a co-angler, but that was a day trip. Although I live on Sinclair, I spent much of my summer traveling 1-2 hours to smaller PFA’s to fish. So my expenses were gas money, protein bars, and water. But here’s an oddity- there’s a ramp I like to launch from on my home lake, and as the crow flies it’s less than ten miles from my house. But because of the lake layout and few bridges it takes me 45 minutes to get there.

You could always eat what you catch. Then again, if you’re not catching anything…🤣🤣🤣

The issue with the brakes - according to BASS and touring pros - is that they make it much easier to control and position the boat when using FFS. That’s why they are now banned.

I was listening to the BTL podcast this morning and the guy who owns Power Brakes is concerned that he now has to come up with a marketing plan without Pro Staff now that those brakes are no longer allowed in BASS. Pro endorsements are huge for any sport. So after the NPFL and BASS moves, what’s next for MLF? My best guess is they go hybrid and allow FFS at some events but not others.

I counter by saying how many Chevy’s Earnhardt sold and how many millions in boats and tackle were influenced by KVD,

It’s the NASCAR principle. Win on Sunday, sell in the showroom on Monday. People emulate the pros. However, I would bet the tournaments across the country, including local tournaments, adopt the same or similar rules.

I think that it changes a lot. There are guys running 3 or 4 FFS transducers out there. They also said the LVS 62 transducer (longer range) is prohibited. That not only impacts the tournaments, but also probably stops Lowrance and Humminbird in the middle of developing their own comparable transducers. This decision probably also stops the development of AI powered systems and species identification development. I think it’s a much bigger deal than just what we see on the boats next year because it’s pausing development above and beyond what is out there now.

A decent compromise with limiting it to one FFS transducer and limiting the total inches in screen size. Also interesting that the LVS62 transducer is not approved for 2025.

I've never like the color of my Autopilot 120. It's the Photic Camo color, and the only reason I have this color is that when I bought it, it was on sale for $500 off. So now I'm thinking of wrapping my kayak with a carbon fiber look. I've seen videos of other people doing it, and I'm betting it's a bit harder then it looks. So I may price having it done professionally from an auto shop that specializes in wraps. From the videos I have seen, anglers are just wrapping the sides and not the stern, cockpit, or tank well. I wonder how hard it would be to do all of it? Anyway, has anyone else wrapped their kayak or looked into it?

There's no doubt that FFS has opened the eyes of a lot of anglers regarding the locations and habits of bass. Household names who made their living off of fishing tournaments or hosting TV shows suddenly get a few smackdowns from young anglers and their electronic toys. That may be humbling and even embarrassing for them at times. But I have to think a lot of this begins to even out as pelagic fish start getting pressured. And yes, right now soft plastic minnow baits are the hot baits. That too, will pass. Personally, I use FFS and I use it mostly to find structure and baitfish. Then I'll throw a Senko, chatterbait, swimbait, crankbait, or whatever else I think I need to get them to strike. I think more of the pros will start doing that as well as the pelagic fish start adapting to minnow presentations or the constant pulse of FFS. As for bait companies, yes, the companies that rely on hard baits may have to adapt and overcome. But I've got $12 hard baits in my tackle boxes that I've had for 5+ years. Companies make more money off me selling me $7 packages of soft baits every two weeks. I also think companies will start developing hybrid baits. Take the Berkley CullShad for example. I think we'll see more smaller, minnow type baits like that with the built-in harness. In the end, I think that BASS and/or MLF find a way to limit FFS and they begin future proofing FFS for tournaments with things like no AI, no species or size identification, etc. But I don't think they go for an outright ban - unless the big names jump ship for the NPFL.

A few weeks ago MLF reached out to MLF Phoenix and Toyota Series anglers and co-anglers and asked us to take a brief survey regarding our opinion of FFS. I think that it may be banned or very limited in co-angler events next year. As for the NPFL news, I'm sure a lot of this is to try and separate themselves from MLF and BASS in hopes of growing their own league.

Moments before a tournament started I had an electrical issue with my kayak. I pulled the battery for my fishfinder system and knocked it into 12 feet of 55 degree water.

I live in the south. It’s fishing season. It’s always fishing season 😀

Senko casting parallel to the shore. Try different retrieves both Texas rigged and wacky rigged.

I'm all over the place which can lead to success or downfall depending upon the day. I carry a few boxes of tried and true baits and I will start with those, but I also bring baits based upon the specific lake forage and season. This year has been much different from any other year for me in that between the couple of tournaments I fished and fishing on my own I have fished about 14 different bodies of water since the spring. Why? Two reasons. The first being for a little adventure and not get stuck in a rut. The second is between using maps, observation, and FFS I'm trying to get better at breaking down lakes more quickly. It's funny, because I live on a lake and although I make a few casts off my back yard almost daily, I have not had my kayak in that lake since May.

It’s weird because I have chatterbaits that I have used for ten years, but let me pick up some jackhammers and I lose them within two months. So I bought two more this week along with 4 packs of Freeloaders and a pack of Senko. A month ago I ordered the new 8:2 version of the Shimano SLX XT 150XG. I didn’t have an 8x in my arsenal but didn’t want to spend $300 on a reel. I heard a lot of rave reviews from iCast about this reel and the major component upgrades over the previous version. For $99 it sounded like a deal I couldn’t pass up.

Just a quick update. I emailed him yesterday and he responded and said he will be back in October and then again in March when the fishing is better.

The world also needs more people like him who choose to fight, endure, adapt, and overcome.

Thanks, but I’m proud of him. We all love to fish, but we also may take it for granted. Fishing is giving him a purpose right now. I probably didn’t do a good job of making that point in my initial post. Not yet. I’m sending him an email with this and other information.

I appreciate that, but for me this is about his resilience and what he taught me and the positive impact he brought my life.

As many of you know, I run a hotel for a living and on many weekends I host my Fishing With The GM program where I get kids and even adults interested in fishing. It's a great time and I spend my morning baiting countless hooks while the anglers catch bluegill after bluegill. But this time of year, when school starts, I shut down the program until next season. But yesterday I received a call from a gentleman who wanted to know if we had any more fishing events this year. I explained to him that the season ended, but if he visited the hotel I would try and find some time to fish with him. Then he told me his story. It changed everything. He said he was "newly disabled" (his term) and was looking for something to occupy his time and he wanted to learn how to bass fish. He read about my program and hoped that I could teach him. That absolutely floored me. I immediately shifted gears and told him that whenever he came to town I would take the time to fish with him. He thanked me and told me he would get back to me. We talked fishing for a few more minutes and he told me about the spinning combo he had just bought and the few baits that he had. I told him that his best and most consistent opportunities to catch bass would be a Texas rigged, 5" green pumpkin Senko as well as a 3/8 ounce chartreuse/white spinnerbait. He was ready to go to Bass Pro right then and there! An hour later he called and asked if I could fish with him the next day (today). I told him I would clear my schedule and might even by able to fish with him when arrived later that day. Luckily, I just happened to have a few rods set up and a change of clothes in my truck. With him arriving in a few hours, I hatched a plan and sped off to the tackle shop at Sugar Creek Marina. I bought him some 5" Senkos, 3/0 AWG hooks, some tungsten bullet weights, and that spinnerbait. He had told me had had limited use of one hand, so I tried to find one of those Hook-Eze devices to tie knots with one hand but they didn't have them. Instead, I printed out a page from Amazon so he could order one. He arrived a bit to late for us to fish yesterday, but we made plans to fish this morning. As we mad our way down the hill to the lake today I learned his story. He had been a doctor for decades running his own practice and suffered a brain tumor a few years ago. After it was removed he could not fend for himself and relied on his wife and others for everything. He was so despondent while he was in the hospital that he asked if they had a Dr. Kevorkian on staff as he no longer wished to live. I cannot imagine what he endured and how he got through it. He can walk a bit now with a walker and even a bit on his own, but relies mostly on his electric wheelchair. Today, as we headed down our steep hill to the lake he almost went off the sidewalk when one of his back wheels locked up. We got him out of his chair and he used his walker to go the rest of the way. Meanwhile, I dispatched my Maintenance Chief to see why the wheel had locked up. Luckily it was an easy fix. The Doctor had fished as a kid, but told me he hadn't fished in 60 years. But now he really wanted to learn to bass fish as it gave him purpose and something to focus on. He had bought a fishing chair at Bass Pro and we set it up at the end of the dock and talked a bit more. I went over the basics of cover, structure, wind, sun, and locating bass. I set up his rod and showed him where to cast parallel to the seawall. That was my mistake as he popped up his first cast into a tree. Luckily, it was close enough to the shore that I could save is bait and his line. So we had his next casts further away from the seawall, and he gradually gained confidence and was able to cast nearer his targets. I wish I could say he caught a bass, but it was not to be. It was a hot and sunny morning, and our shallow and narrow creek channel is lousy when it comes to summer bass fishing. He fished and we talked, and he tried his new baits, and I could see his smile and his confidence in his cats and retrieves. We worked on a few different retrieves with the Senko, including casting it in the shadow of the dock and letting it sit for 20 or 30 before working the bait. After all he has been through, it was great to see him smiling and having a good time out there. Even when he got a little frustrated because of his limitations, he worked through that and had a good time even though he didn't catch anything. I asked him to come back next March when the fishing was better and I'd take the time to fish with him again. He and his wife live right near Lake Allatoona, but I also told them to check out nearby Rocky Mountain PFA as that location is set up for bank fishing. I know from what he said and his reactions that this interaction lifted his spirits, but it also lifted mine. This was a man that spent his lifetime taking care of people, and now it's a challenge to take care of himself. But he pushes on. He is finding his new purpose in life, despite the challenges. I greatly admire that and hope that I can remember to do the same. I'm going to follow up with an email to him tomorrow and provide him some more resources for fishing with disabilities as well as some links to general bass fishing topics. It just goes to show that you never know what life is going to throw at you, and with all of the craziness in the world today there is still some happiness and joy - even if you don't catch a fish.

No. This is a big bass outing and I’m not rigged for saltwater.

I don't mind the big lakes. I've fished Guntersville, Lanier, Clark's Hill, and Hartwell. I live on Sinclair and work on Oconee and they are decent sized but very narrow and you get used to boat traffic. I also never do anything dumb to put myself in jeopardy. I'm extremely cautious on the water. And it's not like I have a lot of range on a kayak, even with the motor. There are a ton of great options out there, but a few in particular that I want to fish because I think the Bassmaster Kayak Series will be at one of them. Typically they release the schedule for the following year at the end of October, about the time I plan to head on vacation.

Thanks. I’m going to pass on the Big O this time. The reports I have seen is that it’s not near the fishery that it once was. My AP120 is not conducive for river fishing and I don’t want to bring two kayaks (my other being a Seastream pedal kayak). I’ll check out the other lakes. Part of the reasoning for my selections is I think that the Bassmaster Kayak Series will have a Florida stop next year and I’d like to be at least a little familiar with the potential stops. That may allow me to shave a day of practice off my trip and save me some money.