Kayak Koz

I have 6 stand up rod holders and two laydown rod holders but I usually bring only 4 rods with me. Three of those are baitcasters in 6:x, 7:x, and 8:x reel speeds. Two of those are on 7' MH Expride rods and the third will either be on a heavy rod or a medium rod depending upon what my game plan is. I also grudgingly bring one spinning rod with me (you'd need to see my thread from last week to understand the joke). I do use one of the standup rod holders for my safety flag. I may add a BFS combo later this year. But honestly, sometimes I think bringing all of that is overkill and I'm carrying too much on my kayak between gear, giant crate stuffed with Plano's cooler, electronics, camera gear, pedal drive, dry bag, C-Tug, and whatever else. It's getting crowded and heavy.

I went full Shimano this year and bought a Curado K, a Curado MGL, and a Curado DC. I like them all, and the DC is probably my favorite of the three. But to be honest, I still thumb the reel out of habit and I've never tried not thumbing it to see what happens. Is it worth it? I think that if you have a consistent issue with backlashes then it might be worth it for you so you're not losing as much time on the water picking out backlashes. Personally, I don't have that issue but I still feel the reel is a good value, I love its performance, and it's a quality reel.

Those Planet Earth documentaries on *** America are amazing. It's also great to watch the episodes on how they made those documentaries and what the camera operators went through to get those shots.

I used Lew's rods and reels for years and I really liked them. One day I decided to be a Curado and an Expride and I really liked those so I bought a few more Curado's and Exprides. That being said, I'm not afraid to try something new. But if it involves raising the bar on price I usually put some thought into it before pulling the trigger. I don't want to end up with a $300 paperweight.

When I fish it's almost always catch and release. If I go camping I'll fish for food, and I'll cull if DNR has a mandate, but it's almost always catch and release. So I got to thinking about this yesterday and it seems to me that catch and release fishing would be like going deer hunting with a paintball gun or airsoft rifle ?

I’ve been here for just over a year and have found zero consistency in this lake. If there’s any good news, the local guides have also been struggling to consistently find LMB. The consensus is that low oxygen levels have hurt fishing, but GA Power just finished an extensive aeration system that should start helping soon.

I have a Curado DC and I love it. I like it more than my MGL or my K. I still thumb it out of force of habit, but I have great casting distance with it including lighter baits like beetlespins.

I have workers fixing my roof and some interior water damage today anyway.

I bought a couple of inexpensive action cameras this year but found that the suction cup and sticky mounts would not work on my kayak. So I'm going to have to by some track and some mounts to get it all set up. I just haven't taken the time to do it yet. My thought was to have one camera mounted behind me without the protective case so it captures audio. The other camera will be mounted lower near the bow in the waterproof case. That way I can strip the audio as needed from the camera behind me and drop it in the second camera footage.

This is why I enjoy fishing on my kayak. Even if the fish aren't biting I can get out there, drift along, and just enjoy being outdoors and clearing my head. I could use some of that now, but it's rain and thunderstorms here all weekend.

Brother!

Interesting... I'm not sure if you could generate enough electricity to fully charge a unit to provide 30-50lb thrust, but you could probably generate enough as a recovery system to partially charge it during your trip to supplement the battery power that you started with. Think of it like the KERS system on F1 cars. Let's build upon that further and have solar panels near the bow of the kayak. You'd lose storage, but on a large fishing kayak with a pedal drive in front of you you rarely have a need to access that part of the kayak once you are underway. There are some videos out there from DIYers that have big panels for solar powered kayaks. Some even create a solar panel canopy, but none of this is feasible for fishing. The issue at hand is a MinnKota trolling motor will pull 30 amps and you are only going to get about an 8 amp output from a reasonably sized solar panel that you can put on your kayak. So you're not going to be able to run a bigger trolling motor off of solar, but you could use it as a recovery method. Torqeedo has a solar charger. I think these would both be doable as a supplemental recovery system, but not as a primary source of power for the motor.

1. You'll get the hang of it. Just be careful if you have rods in rod holders behind you. But the easiest way is positioning the nose of your kayak to accommodate your cast. 2. I've lost a few trying to get them in. As you try and position the rod to use the net or lip it the line sometimes slacks. You might find it easier to just lift them on to the deck. 3. This is why I have a pedal kayak. I can jog the pedals and bump the rudder to stay in place. You might want to look into an anchor and anchor trolley.

That would be a big NO. I can cast a “normal” weighted bait far on a spinning reel, but still not as far as my good baitcasting reels. And while I don’t fish any tiny lures, I can toss small beetlespins and spinnerbaits a lot farther on my casting gear.

There - I said it. I grew up on spinning gear and I loved spinning gear. But now I'm done with it. I incorporated it back into my arsenal this summer for some finesse fishing but between decreased casting accuracy, line twist, and not casting very far I'm going to put my spinning gear away again. Instead, I'll spool up some 10-15 pound braid on one of my baitcasters and use that for my ned rigs, drop shots, beetlespins, and other smaller and lighter baits. I honestly don't think I'll be missing anything, and my attitude will be better ? Has anyone else eliminated spinning gear from their daily arsenal?

Seems like a terrible waste of bacon, Let’s confuse folks even more: mudbugs

I don't mind fishing in the rain at all. I just got hit with an unexpected squall and didn't have my rain gear with me. One thing I did do this week is order an Onyx AM/24 life vest that will be much more comfortable to wear - especially with rain gear - instead of my bulky Onyx kayak life vest.

I couldn’t locate the bass that day and ended up throwing a ned rig and catching crappie instead. Me electronics showed some bigger fish in deeper (23 feet) water hugging the bottom, but that was in the middle of a main channel with lots of boat traffic. I don’t feel safe setting up there in my kayak.

In this part of the south, this time of year we get popup thunderstorms all of the time no matter what the radar and forecast says. It's no fun being 2-4 miles from your launch point on a slow moving kayak and get caught in a storm. And where I am located it's almost 100% residential so if I have to shelter it's in someone's yard and not in the woods.

I got back at it yesterday. I only worked about 6 hours and then dragged myself and my kayak down to the lake. I spent most of my time pedaling out to some new areas and working my electronics. I couldn't fins any bass, but I caught some crappie. I was about 2.5 miles out and looked back towards where I launched and saw a rain squall coming my way. Knowing thunderstorms were a few hours out, I headed back and took on the squall head on. I can tell you this - wearing glasses is no fun in heavy rain. Other than getting wet, is was a good day back out on the water. It's just too bad that it's supposed to rain for the rest of the week.

OK - I’m planning to change that up today if the rain holds off. I’ve never fished a drop shot before, but I bought the gear this week and I will give it a go today.

Get back to us in 6 months and tell us how that is going for you! ? If you're interested, I have a Lowrance Hook2 5 Tripleshot that I'm looking to sell along with a 7AH Dakota Lithium battery. The Tripleshot transducer has sonar, down scan, and side scan. I'll also throw in a YakAttack head mount for it. DM me if you're interested and I'll also tell you how I had it set up on my rig. I really liked my Hook2, but for my old eyes I wanted a bigger screen and I upgraded to a Humminbird Helix 7 Di SI.

As someone who doesn't own a boat, I find this fascinating. I mean, the numbers make sense because for bass fishing the trolling motor is the primary means of propulsion. But the expense for a boat motor versus the time it's used reminds me of people that collect expensive cars but rarely take them out for a drive. Growing up my family had boats (a 26 footer and a 55 footer) but they were ocean boats we used for short and long pleasure trips. I don't even recall fishing off them.

I’ve heard that bass mark their calendars for social gatherings on Wednesdays and Thursdays? Bluegill? Those guys like to party all of the time.