Kayak Koz

I get paid to fish 😀 That some what makes up for running a business that is open 24/7/365.

I host a weekly fishing program for kids and adults at my hotel. We use spincast rods, tiny hooks, small bobbers, and redworms and have the kids catch bluegill all morning long. We fish along the banks of the hotel and each kid catches at least 5-10 bluegill, pumpkinseed, small catfish, or small bass every single week. For safety reasons I bait the hooks and unbutton the fish, but I teach the anglers how to gently and safely release the fish. I'd start there. Hopefully that builds confidence and makes them want to fish more. Then progress to different baits and fishing for different species. To get someone interested in fishing I think it's important to get them catching as many fish as possible right away, and that starts with small panfish. If you head right out of the gate fishing for bigger fish, especially in the summer, it can get very boring very fast.

I won't be attending. I thought about it, but it's a long drive from Georgia. It would also get expensive very quickly between travel, accommodations, food, and tournament fees. However, on FB I did see posts about anglers renting houses and looking for roommates. I may do that next year. I'm really looking forward to seeing the 2025 schedule. Unfortunately, I spoke with the TD and BASS will not be expanding the number of events next year and will stick to 5 events and the championship. That seems ridiculous to me since they are drawing 200+ anglers for most tournaments.

This is why I quite the MLF events as a back seater. I'm scheduled to be a backseater in a Bassmaster Open event later this year, but I think I'm going to pass on that as well. I'm going to stick to kayak tournaments and choose my own destiny.

That’s an interesting looking kayak. I would definitely like to see it up close. That being said, I love my AP120 and if I made a move away from that it would be to a full-sized bass boat.

If you’re fishing only once a month, stick with the basics as described above with the vest and paddle. Next, get yourself a decent net. You’ll land more fish with a net than trying to boat them. Once the kayak fishing bug hits you, you’re going to want to add a lot more including electronics. That’s where you’ll want to take a breath and plan. It all starts with where you want to put your transducer. That impacts your cabling and battery placement and what type of transducer mount you will use. Then you decide what type of sonar you want and how big a head unit. If you really enjoy kayak fishing, then buy the best system you can afford and plan ahead. If not, you may have a closet full of electronics. I suggest that before you do any drilling that you run the wiring externally and try the head unit in different places until you figure out what works best. I went from a 5” Lowrance DI SI to a 7” Humminbird DI SI to a 9” Garmin FFS DI SI. But I now run two units with the Garmin for sonar and the Humminbird for mapping.

I dream of being six feet tall 😀 I was 5-7 but aging has shrunk me to 5-6. Height skipped my generation, but my son is 6-4.

Not quite as easy to do when you’re short and aren’t stable standing in your kayak.

I’m ready when you are. I can move my schedule around to fish weekdays as well. There are a few more PFA’s I hope to try this year as well. I’m not upset about the penalty. I’m more disappointed with myself. It took me a while to get the hook out and that led to me rushing the picture. And despite my net barrier, I was a little gun shy after having two flop overboard in my last tournament.

I alternate between having tunnel vision out there and herding cats. Sometimes it’s paralysis of analysis. On the drive home I often Monday morning quarterback my day. I think what I need to do is keep a log or journal and use that info on future outings.

It is my personal experience that in smaller bodies of water I can scan the area and find “fishy” spots. But on large bodies of water, more often than not it’s the surrounding structure (switchbacks, creek beds, roads, bottom composition, ledges, etc.) that play an important role in whether that fishy looking spot is a frequent spot for bass.

You must be catching those domesticated bass 🤣 I’ve lost multiple fish in a single tournament. Spotted bass are the worst. They tend to be hyperactive. I have started putting my net standing up next to the near end of the board since that’s the direction they usually flop.

It does take some time to unbutton the fish, set up the Ketch board, grab the phone, open the app, and snap the picture. This fish took a while to unbutton because the hook was in between the cheek membrane and I was trying not to rip that membrane apart.

I fished in a local kayak tournament this weekend where we could pick the lake. @Hook2Jaw suggested I try Ocmulgee PFA. This is a very interesting managed fishery and I will definitely head out there again soon. There are a lot of areas with Cypress trees and a ton of submerged branches and a ton of branches above the water. It's definitely challenging to navigate and fish. Thankfully, with the steering pedals and the iPilot controls on my AP120 I can make some tight turns. It was calm for most of the day on Sunday, but I imagine it would be really tough to navigate on windy days. Many areas were just too tight to try and spot lock. It was also blazing hot out there. Temperatures were in the upper 90's and the heat index was well over 100. But I will say this - the KastKing UPF 50 moisture wicking hoodie I was wearing was incredible. The one I was wearing that day was orange and black and my body did not come close to overheating. My head got hot a bit with the hoodie on and my boonie hat over it, but not too bad. Oh yeah - this hoodie has a built in gaiter and the thumb holes in the sleeves so your hands stay mostly covered. Best of all, it was only $33 on Amazon. I caught this 21" bass early on in the day on a green pumpkin / chartreuse tip trick worm. I didn't have my scale, but this girl was a fatty so I'm guessing 6 - 6.5 pounds. I saw a few other bas and had one other weak strike, but once the sun started beating down the bass went into hiding. And wouldn't you know it, just at the 2pm time limit hit I saw a few more as I was heading in for the day. The spot where I caught this one was loaded with baitfish and had a lot of sticks and a ledge (take a look at the FFS screen in the picture). I should have just camped on that spot and waited for one or two good bites an hour. But instead I spent time cruising around using my FFS. I was surprised that I didn't find bass or baitfish around the Cypress. And I checked every single one of those on this small lake. I feel lied to by every Bassmaster and MLF broadcast I have watched! To add insult to injury, I got a 1" deduction for the mouth being open. I thought that was a bit harsh because that's as closed as I could get it. Oh - and the big bass of the tournament was just over 21".

Let's put aside the controversy surrounding FFS and discuss what I think is an interesting topic - has it changed the way you fish? It has for me, and some of that has been good and some of it has been bad. On the good side, it helps me quickly eliminate unproductive water. I can pull up on a spot and see there is no or very little bait and no predators. It also helps me define and better target both fish and structure. Well, kind of. Depending upon the distance of the object you're still dealing with a sonar cone. On the downside, I'm less patient out there. For example, on Sunday I set up near a ledge and saw lots of baitfish and a few bigger predators cruising. Although I didn't see that specific fish on FFS, I soon landed a 21" bass (probably 5.5 - 6 pounds as I didn't bring my scale). This was a new lake to me so I moved off and tried some other areas, mostly looking for predators. I circled back towards that ledge, saw tons of baitfish but no predators, and moved on to another spot. I crossed that area again later in the day, saw two bass at the bottom of the ledge, made some casts with different baits, didn't get a bite, and moved on. In the past without FFS and with traditional imaging I would have seen all of the baitfish and camped out on that spot knowing that at this time of year in these particular weather conditions the bass would eventually come cruising by. This is especially true since I had caught one in that immediate area earlier in the day. Hindsight is 20-20 and I should have just camped out on that spot and waited for that one good bite every 45-60 minutes. But for me, FFS definitely causes me to be impatient and that's a habit I have to break. Sure, use it to eliminate unproductive water. But when I find a traditional bass spot holding lots of bait I need to forget about the dopamine hit of seeing the bass on Livesope. Chances are they will show up. For me, the solution might be to find that ideal spot loaded with bait and just shut off FFS for 30 minutes and stop chasing shadows. How about you?

Thanks. @Hook2Jaw called me tonight with more info and texted me some photos as well. I appreciate everyone’s help. It’s a great benefit since I have never been there before and there’s a potentially short bite window with this summer heat. And thanks for the tip about the gators. I’ve been around gators a lot of times when I lived in SC, but better forewarned than surprised.

It’s frustrating because with Livescope and so much bait around it’s hard to believe the predators aren’t at least sitting there. I’ve thought about just camping out on a point for an hour or two waiting for the bass to show up instead of running and gunning looking for bass. The problem is that I’m not that patient to sit around and wait for one good bite.

I’m actually going to try an 880-acre, electric motor only lake on Saturday. On Sunday I was thinking about Clark’s Hill / Strom Thurmond, but @Hook2Jaw suggested I try the smaller Ocumulgee PFA and I’m leaning that way. I’m still not sure I want to brave the heat, but this weekend there is an interesting regional two day kayak tournament where the rules state you have to fish a different public Georgia lake each day. I have never fished either of the lakes and can’t find depth maps for them so I’m going in blind. But they are small enough that I can cover water easily,

We’ve had constant, oppressive heat in Georgia for a month now. Every day has been 90+ and heat indices of 100 - 112 degrees. I saw the results of a recent tournament on Lake Oconee where the winning bag was a five fish limit of only five and a half pounds. That’s brutal. I fished Sinclair the other morning and caught only one small bass and a 7 or 8 pound blue cat. Baitfish are stacked up in the usual spots, but there are no predators to be found even on FFS. What makes Oconee and Sinclair tough are that they are narrow, dammed up rivers with lots of pleasure boat traffic. If you want to try and fish the deep ledges you have pontoon boats and wake boats buzzing by you all day. That’s not a lot of fun if you have a bass boat and dangerous if you’re like me and fish from a kayak. I was planning to fish both days this weekend, but temps are supposed to be 96-97 and a heat index of Hades.

My son and I once bank fished during a tropical storm. He was 10 or 11 and he thought it would be fun. He was right. We didn't catch anything, but we laughed the entire time. As for now, if it's intermittent showers I will head out there. But if it's a day long deluge I stay home.

I have Garmin FFS / DI SI on my kayak but I find the Lakemaster mapping to be so much better that I also installed my Helix 7. Smartstrike is also an i interesting feature with the upgraded Lakemaster.

I fish a decent number of different lakes and try and buy baits to match the hatch. I’m lucky that I have a decent tackle shop nearby so I don’t have to order too much online. As for rods and reels, I have only one spinning setup and at some point this year I’ll probably buy one more. That reminds me - I think TW is having a sale right now…

I'm glad they gave me the bag of extra nylon bolts for that mount. I've sheared 3 or 4 of them already. Do you think that having the head units mounted that high or going to interfere with setting the hook or landing fish? That was my concern with that type of setup. That's why I built my custom center mount close to the deck for my Garmin 93 and why I have my Helix 7 far forward on the rail. Of course, I'm short and even with the raised seat I'm still sitting low in my kayak. Maybe that's the difference.

The two most productive baits of all time: 1. Senko 2. Whopper Plopper The two most overrated baits of all time: 1. Senko 2. Whopper Plopper Of course, that's a bit of hyperbole. On some lakes those baits are magic. On other lakes you can't buy a bite with those baits.

I live in Georgia now. I don’t think a have to worry about breaking Perry’s record * * There are a lot of people that don’t believe this record to be true.