Kayak Koz

I'm happy with the Malone, although I think the frame isn't quite square. I need to take some time and fix that. It also rides quiet enough that in the dark I sometimes wonder if I'm still towing it. The only issue was that the wire and plug to connect the power to the truck was too short and I had to splice an extension. I've seen other people complain about that as well.

When I was lagoon fishing back in SC, whenever I saw a bait ball I'd throw a buzzbait out there and more often than not a bass would smash it.

OK, so the other night I'm fishing out back of my hotel around 8 pm and I run a chatterbait over one of the brush piles that that I set up in our creek channel. Sure enough I get snagged. I walk up and down the bank trying to get an angle to free and and use my trusty bow and arrow technique but it breaks off. I fish for a while, stop, then head out for a few casts around 11 pm. Even with the dock lights it's tough to see out there. After a few casts I go to cast again and my rod and bait feel weird. I grab the bait and there a line wrapped around it, so of course I hand line it and pull it in. It's the chatterbait I lost earlier in the evening. Go figure.

Long story short, I'm living at my hotel for a little while so I've been fishing off of our docks at night. I had been renting a cottage on a farm, but the owners sold it quickly and moved to Colorado. There are very few rentals out this way and the market is tight on homes for sale with interest rates climbing. It looks like I'll have to move 50-60 miles from work to find something affordable that meets my needs. It really stinks that houses are so overvalued and interest rates are high. It will cost me $1k more a MONTH for the same loan amount I should have taken 2 years ago - and I get less house for it. I think I'll rent and wait this one out. The housing bubble should burst in the next few years. Anyway, my kayak and trailer are put away in storage right now so I've been fishing off of our docks in the evenings. The fishing has been decent for our stretch of Oconee so I've been happy with that. Tonight I headed out around sunset and our entire creek channel was filled with thousands upon thousands of minnows. There were bait balls on the surface everywhere, but if you casted between them the baitfish would still pop and scatter. I watched wads of them swim right along the front of our docks. If I had a bait net I could have scooped up hundreds. So of course, I'm thinking that it's going to be a good evening of fishing. I was wrong. There was not a predator to be found. Normally you'll see the baitfish pop and scatter when being chased of see catfish or bass feasting on them. But tonight, nothing. I don't have a lot of gear since most of it is in storage, but I tossed some spinnerbaits, Keitechs on an underspin, small buzzbaits, poppers, and some trick worms and Senkos and nothing. But I did a great job of scattering the bait. I've seen bait balls and a lot of baitfish before, but this was as far as they eye could see throughout the entire creek channel. There was no wind tonight and almost no boat traffic in our area, so the water was calm. While I didn't catch anything, it was an amazing sight.

Fishing in a light paddle kayak is night and day from using an actual fishing kayak, especially a pedal kayak. What you will learn is what you hate about kayak fishing, and that can help if you ever decide to upgrade to a purpose built fishing kayak. You can try anchor trolleys and they may help, but you're also adding more weight o the kayak and creating more work. When I tried a paddle kayak I found myself spending more time in anchoring and repositioning rather than actual fishing. With my pedal kayak I can fish and move at the same time or keep myself angled and in place while jogging the pedals and bumping the rudder while I am fishing. If yu ever kove to a pedal kayak, make sure it has instant reverse and not switched reverse. That being said, if I had to do it all over again I would have spent more money on an Old Towne kayak with the spot lock trolling motor.

Chances are your state requires only the white light at the rear of the craft and does not want the red/green lights on the kayak. I have a Yak Attack VisiPole safety flag that has the light. It's designed so people can see it far away but it doesn't cast a lot of light on the water or the deck.

About 6 or 7 years ago when we had yet another tropical storm pass through the Hilton Head area my son said, "Let's go fishing!" We lived in a community where the golf course had shuttered, so we got on our bikes and rode the cart path to one of the lagoons where there was a big maintenance pavilion a few hundred feet from the water so we could try and duck in and out of the weather as the rain bands passed by. We caught nothing, but we had fun. At one point when the rain and winds were high I looked over at my son, he had his line in the water and he was leaning back smiling and shouting at the weather. He reminded my of that hurricane scene with Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump. When the storm passed and the sun broke out I remember a big gator coming out of the bank and swimming off. And although it was a better time to fish, my son said "I'm done. Let's go home." It's one of those many experiences with my son that I will never forget.

Bank fishing on big lakes is no fun. Bank fishing on ponds is a blast.

I will take you up on that sometime. Thank you. We don't need to fish tournaments except maybe a few of those team club events in our area. We're bound to win one someday. BTW, I'm looking at a rental home on Sinclair this week complete with dock. This was kind of last minute as I was just about close close on buying some new build construction off the lake. I looked at buying a home on Sinclair or Oconee, but everything in my price range required too much work to fix it up.

Same stuff I was, mostly relying on a topwater popper. That's what he caught his fish on. When I do this next year I'm going to be more selective and fish the largemouth lakes instead of spotted base lakes, even if it means I have to travel and enter the Florida events. Unless I buy a boat and become a boater next year. Or maybe I'll skip the tournaments and just fish with my buddy @flatcreek instead. We'll have more fun.

If I was running the boat I would have at least spent the morning fishing for largemouth. Because of the heat and the tough fishing conditions they changed it from a 5 fish limit to a 3 fish limit. With that, I'd rather take the chance in the morning for 2 or 3 four or five pound LMB than the smaller spotted bass. In pre-fishing, we found big schools of small spotted bass, but even then not a lot of bites.

I've had boaters using 360 and live scope cast right on top of my bait when fishing off shore. Completely aggravating. I think the real solution is to just go out and buy a boat. It's going to have to wait a bit though, I just bought a new Bronco and I'm in the middle of buying a new house.

I know that rule and thought about it. I think what I am going to do is call the tournament director and ask their opinion on the matter. They boater was a nice kid and in no way was he being a jerk about anything. I think that it's probably a fine line between being unfairly handicapped and the nature of the beast fishing deep water. That being said, out of 135 co-anglers there were about 66 that caught ZERO fish that day. Conditions were brutal out there with the heat and the boat traffic. Ideally, I think that in these tournaments if a boater is fishing deep structure that they should parallel the structure and give the co-angler a chance. Unfortunately, that's illegal in MLF tournaments.

Learn what? Stare at live target all day and cast where you see fish? Sorry, but there's nothing to learn in that situation. I tossed small, medium and big flutter spoons hoping to lure the spotted bass off the brush pile. It didn't work.

Here's the setup: I was fishing an MLF event on Lanier this past weekend (not team fishing) and the boater wanted to run and gun deep water (30-60 feet deep) spots all over the lake and fish brush piles and humps. I can see the contour map on the console, and most of the time my targets are wastelands while he's live target fishing. He's not using spot lock, and we're constantly on the move, so throwing a drop shot or shaky head off the back or sides doesn't give the bait a ton of time to get down there and I'm just dragging the bait. In a past tournament, I tossed a Carolina rig and let it drag around and caught one, but that boater also had 360 and kept casting on top of my bait when he saw fish in my area. What do you do here? Do you ask the boater if you can cast over the bow and potentially poach his catch? Do you ask him to approach the brush pile from the side of the boat and maybe so you both have a shot? Do you ask the boater to set the console to side imaging so you can maybe pick up some structure in the deep water? I fan casted all day with top waters, covered water with crankbaits and lipless cranks, tossed big flutter spoons hoping to attract something off the brush pile, and still tried drop shots. I also made a rig where I pegged a 3/4 oz weight 8-12 inches above a shaky head so it got to the bottom quickly and I had a little time to work the bait. I'm not a fan of fishing deep water, but I'll attack it out on my kayak and I can catch fish. I'm perfectly fine with the boater doing his own thing. My question is to address my shortcomings and understand the etiquette here regarding being able to take advantage of the live targeting off the front of the boat. How do you approach this scenario?

Out on the kayak I have both space and weight considerations so while I stock up on water and Diet Lipton Citrus Green Tea (zero calories, zero sugar), for food I bring protein bars. I have a Yakhacker Kayak Cooler that attaches to the back of my seat. Out on the boat I'll bring the same plus a Publix sub. But the problem is that I'm usually fishing a tournament when out on the boat and that's when I tend not to eat or drink because I get caught up in the moment. And as a co-angler, I don't want to slow the boater down. I have to remember to force myself to eat and drink.

I actually brought this up with Glenn a few years ago because I, ahem, run a hotel on a lake. He mentioned those same concerns to me as he listed above. Of course, I could make the room charges non-refundable...

So I've had this bad boy for just over a month and the other day we had a hail storm with 2" hail and now I've got 8 or 9 dents and dings in it. I filed a claim and the body shop is checking it out next week. I did pick up the Malone trailer and that has worked out great, although I still haven't had much time to fish and when I do it's too dang hot. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to fish in the next month or so because I need to find a new place to live. I was renting a cottage out here and while it was not spectacular, it was dirt cheap. But the owners just sold their house and the cottage and I need to move by the middle of next month. Other rental homes are expensive here so it's actually cheaper to buy. So today I scrambled and git approved for a mortgage. Now I just need to find a house and unfortunately inventory of homes is slim right now, especially in my price range. At least if I can't find anything I can put my stuff in storage and live in my hotel for a little while. But it's absolutely no fun living at work.

Seastream Angler 120 PD. I've written a few reviews about it here on BR. I've had mine for over 2 years and it had been great. I don't have any regrets.

I usually use a bobber stop with a T-rigged worm but that doesn't mean I always cinch the weight up to the hook. If I'm trying to skip way back into the shadows under docks I will cinch it up so it doesn't helicopter. Other times I'll move the bobber stop and experiment with different lengths. All this is with lighter weights and looking for a slower fall. If I'm just trying to get the bait to the bottom I'll set up a Carolina Rig with a heavier weight and beads or clacker to make some noise.

My phone stays in my dry bag, crate, or tackle bag when I'm out on my kayak or on a boat. I have an Amazfit GTR2 watch that allows me to answer phone calls and read texts while I'm fishing. While I can receive incoming calls, I can't call out on it nor can I respond to texts. But answering calls on it is enough for me. Actually, maybe I can call out. I forgot that my watch is connected to Alexa. I'll have to try that sometime. It also texts me any of my app alerts or Alexa messages. So if I set up weather alerts on my phone I'll get them on my watch. I paid $199 for it over a year ago and now it's down tp $124. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HRBZ2G4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Oddly enough, I think that I do better from the bank than from the kayak or boat. From the banks, I'll pick an area apart using different baits and techniques and if after that nothing is biting I'll hit the next spot. In a kayak it's slower paced, but I'm still moving. In a boat it's a lot of run and gun. There's no real picking apart a spot with different baits because if you're not getting bit on whatever you're throwing you usually move on. Sure, you might switch up baits while you're on the move, but you rarely sit in one spot and pick it apart. And that makes me wonder, how many times have we missed fish because we keep moving instead of fishing that spot thoroughly? I realize that with live imaging this has changed for some, but not everyone has that luxury.

I've got a tournament at Keowee this weekend and then another tournament at Lanier at the end of the and I've been deciding on what strategies to employ in this ridiculous heat. The mornings will be no brainers throwing topwaters and instead of throwing big baits I plan to downsize a little with 1/4 oz buzzbaits and some walking baits. But I realized I don't have any smaller walking baits left in my arsenal so I picked up a couple of Spook Juniors. My frogs are kind of ratty, so I also picked up a Scum Frog to add to my topwater arsenal. I go through underspins like a kid goes through candy, so I also picked up a handful of Berkley Fusion 19's in different sizes and colors. These things are always money for me. Incoming Monty Python reference: And Now for Something Completely Different... The plan is to move to deeper water as the day progresses and with the the drop shot will come into play. I'll deep crank if I have to, but for me both of those techniques grind me one way or another. So I wanted to try something new (for me) to entice suspended fish and those hanging out near the bottom. Enter the flutter spoon. I don't think I've thrown any type of spoon since I was a kid throwing a Red Devil, so this should be fun and a nice change. I picked up a 3" Magic Shad Lake Fork flutter spoon, a a 4.75" Blueback HD Nichols flutter spoon, and a 6" Sexy Shad Lake Fork flutter spoon. I can't wait to try those out.

I have a Seastream Angler 120 pedal drive and I use the YakAttack Switchblade for my transducer and attach the Switchblade to a YakAttack CellBlok. I could put the Switchblade on the rail as well. My Helix 7 DI/SI is also mounted to the CellBlok. I like this because when I set up to head out or break down to pack up all I have to do is remove the CellBlok from the rail and everything else comes with it. Also, with the SwitchBlade I don't have to worry about damaging the transducer when I move or transport the kayak. With this setup I have no issues with down imaging or side imaging. Keep in mind that my kayak does not have any storage compartments for batteries and the storage behind my seat is for my crate, cooler, and C-Tug when I'm out on the water.

That's why I'll get the details and do the math. Another example is the Tracker Pro 170. It has an average package weight of 1840 pounds. On the Lowe 175C the motor options are 25HP and 60HP. The 60HP is about 250 pounds. While I initially considered a jon boat, I plan to keep tournament fishing in the future.