Kayak Koz

I buy boxes of the individual lens wipe packets for my eyeglasses and I toss a handful of those in my crate for when I have to clean my screen. I also keep a cover on my head unit when it’s not in use.

I have a one on each side of my kayak. I also have Yak Attack and Humminbird stickers. If I like the products I don’t mind helping promote their business. Just about every time I go and fish I get people asking about my kayak and my gear and I don’t mind sharing my experiences. This is actually how we can help grow the sport.

I did that with my dog and now he asks to go outdoors, runs out the door, looks around, and then runs back in and demands a treat for "going outside." Congrats on the new dog. Mine is a shelter dog as well who was given up TWICE. Once he realized he wasn't going to be abandoned again he settled right in and now he's a "velcro dog" most of the time - he likes to be near me. We've had him for 10 years now.

It’s mostly lack of sleep because of my chaotic schedule. Under normal conditions I’m in bed by 10 and up 5-6. Now I might not get home until midnight and be back at work by 6:45 am. This was no big deal when I was younger, but it takes a toll now. Thankfully, I have a great core crew and they look out for me. For example, my full time night auditor volunteered and picked up tonight’s overnight shift so I don’t have to do it. Other associates picked up extra days next week so I can have a day off. I love my crew!

Too long ago except for COVID testing. I'm due for a check up, eye exam and PSA test. It's hard to do that with my hotel schedule and on top of that I serve on 4 boards here in town. It would be easier if I could find an experienced Assistant GM. Venting here has been cathartic. I do see a distant light at the end of the tunnel.

My hotel owner is a good guy and he actually forces me to take days off. But when you’re short staffed - like every business in this rural town - that’s not possible. When I got back to the hotel today I got THREE complaints that the new guy working the front desk hung up on callers yesterday. Naturally, I fired him. So my schedule today is 8 am until 11 pm, back at 7 am until 1:30 pm tomorrow, then back at 11pm tomorrow night until 7 am on Friday, the full days on Saturday and Sunday. But the good news is that the rest of the front desk staff offered to pull extra shifts next week so I won’t have an insane schedule. And yes, I am getting burned out and I came close to sending out my resume. But I made a promise to the owner for two years and I respect him so I will stay. But it will cost him a lot more to keep me next year.

I would usually find time to go fish our docks for 15-20 minutes mid afternoon or after work, but lately between being busy or it being blazing hot out I have not ben out there much. Not only that, but also the fact that the bass have moved out of our shallow cove for most of the day during the summer. During the spring and summer we usually have our Fishing with the GM program 2-3 times a month, but because we have been short staffed we only did it 3 times this year. We also had only 2 S'Mores nights, and we usually do that every weekend. Yeah - the bass fishing has still not come back on Oconee. But the Georgia Power project manager guys that are working on the project to install aerators have been in my hotel a lot this summer. Hopefully that brings the lake back over the next year.

My hotel owner is actually a good guy and some days he forbids me from showing up. But we were a bit short staffed, I had to fire someone for drug use, and then COVID hit a number of associates so I have been covering hourly positions at the front desk as well as my own work. It stunk, but we made it through the COVID mini outbreak and we have some new staff in training. Hopefully in two weeks things will be back to normal.

I was about to do a Google search and post a picture as a response, but I thought better of it.

I think that if I was back in my old SC stomping grounds bank fishing lagoons I would have one out there. But the thought of launching from my hotel and lugging the kayak to and from teh water didn't appeal to me today. I was feeling old this morning.

I've had only a few days off the past 2+ months, but I managed to take off Monday and Tuesday (today) this week. Monday was catching up on chores, washing the car, and just decompressing. I set my alarm to go off at 4:30 am on Tuesday to head out on my kayak and do some fishing. By 4:50 am I was back in bed. I decided to catch up on some sleep instead. Fast forward to this afternoon, and it's an overcast day with temps only in the low 80's instead of blazing summer heat. For summertime in GA, it's actually a pretty good day to get out there. School has started and the boat traffic should be minimal. The problem? I'm just not motivated to go even though a part of me really wants to fish today. I think the problem is that my kayak and my favorite gear is stored at my hotel and I just don't want to get sucked into whatever has been going on at the property the past few days. Mercifully, my staff has (hopefully) handled anything that came up as I have only received one text message from them since yesterday. They know I've been stressed lately and their looking out for me. So, have you ever found yourself lacking motivation to go fishing even though part of you really wants to get out there?

According to my GPS, I routinely cover 4, 5, or 6 miles when I head out to fish. But the primary grounds where I want to fish are 4 miles away (secondary is about 3 miles away) and not a launch in site. So that's about 3 hours of round trip travel time. Maybe in the fall that's doable, but not in the heat of the summer. Even when I head out at 4 in the morning, but 9 or 10 am it's hot and humid out there.

I saw that or something similar. The big issue right now is that there's not anything out there made specifically for my Seastream (which is actually part of Feel Free). I've been thinking about a boat, but I really don't want the headaches that go along with owning and maintaining a boat. I like the simplicity of a kayak. I'm going to stay with what I have for now.

I absolutely hate pontoon boats. If I'm throwing a party on the lake, sure. But for anything else forget it.

The more I explore this the more I go down the rabbit hole. The reason I bought 1 $1,500 kayak and not a $3,500 kayak was not because of the difference in price, but because I didn't want to shell out a ton of money in case I did not like it. I've got that same thing going on with a trolling motor. I like the features of the Minn Kota or the MotorGuide with GPS, but it's a lot of money up front (if I end up not liking a trolling motor on my kayak) and I still need to develop a custom mounting solution for the bow. So then I thought about adding a $180 (36 pound thrust) or $250 (55 pound thrust) transom mount Newport Vessels trolling motor to see if I liked having a trolling motor. I could use the Railblaza motor mount ($150) which would also allow me to keep my pedal drive on the kayak at the same time. I did figure out how to mount it off the back of my kayak by making a cheap plywood sandwich plate over the rear grab handle. But then I would need to disconnect my kayak rudder. I'd also have to disconnect the head unit and mount it by the cockpit and come up with a quick connect/disconnect steering mechanism so I could still easily lower and raise the motor. Cables and eyebolts along with some foot pedals would do the trick, but that also means adding foot pedals and tracks, another cost plus the other hardware. The more I think about it, I don't need to go that route because without a spot lock motor my main goal will be to use it only to cover long distances. For short distances and while fishing I will still use my pedal drive. So the Railblaza option is the easiest. But then we get to adding another battery and battery box, with the battery being the key issue. The places I want to fish are 2-3 miles from where I launch. The 55lb thrust motor draws 43 amps (52 max) at full speed of 4.3 mph. So if I take amp hours / amp draw = run time a 100AH battery gives me about 2.3 hours running time, which isn't very much. The 36lb thrust model draws a maximum of 29 amps with a top speed of 3.5 mph. That gives me about 3.4 hours of battery life at top speed or might give me the option of dropping to a 60AH - 75AH battery. A 75AH AGM battery is still about 50 pounds but can be had for $150 - $200. Interestingly enough, there's not much savings in dropping from a 100AH lithium batter to a 60AH or 75AH lithium battery. I could go slower, but my cruising speed when pedaling long distance is 3 mph and my main goal is getting to my fishing spots quicker so that I have more time to fish. An added benefit is not being wiped out when I get there. The batteries themselves are an issue. A 100AH AGM battery weighs about 66 pounds and they aren't all that cheap at $220 - $300. A 100AH lithium battery weighs only about 25 pounds, but costs $320 - $900. Add a battery box for another $70 on top of that. My kayak is already crowded with my C-Tug, chairback cooler, crate, and dry bag. To save weight and space I can ditch the crate and store some Planos under my seat. But I lose 4 rod holders by removing the crate so that means adding track and 4 more rod holders, which is another $200. So what I'm getting at for those also considering adding a trolling motor to their kayak is that a $200 trolling motor is going to end up costing you a LOT more than that. My conclusions? The first thing is that while I'm going to save a lot of physical effort, I'm not going to save a lot of time getting from place to place and my range is limited unless I'm willing to invest in hooking up multiple batteries and that would mean investing in Lipo batteries because of weight considerations. Or I could just go slower and chew up my fishing time unless I took up trolling. As it stands, adding the battery, motor, mount, and battery box are about $850. Add another $200 if I dump my heavy crate and add rod holders and track. But Brooklyn Kayak has a purpose built kayak with a trolling motor for about $1,500. Better yet, I could sell my kayak and buy an Old Town Sportsman Autopilot for $4k or a Sportsman with a Minn Kota for $3k. So I'm in limbo. I'm not sure if there's enough cost/benefit to upgrade my current kayak. I'll probably stew over this for a month or two before deciding if I should upgrade or just sell it and buy an Old Town. But of course, now I've started looking at buying a boat as well. Down the rabbit hole...

I tie on hooks for soft plastics, but use VMC Touch Loc snaps for most everything else. Having to tie on all the time when fishing from a kayak can be a bit of a pain.

If anyone here wants to meet up and kayak fish Oconee with me this fall I’m game.

It was probably 4 years ago during the spring and summer when I caught tons of bass on a Whopper Plopper. I mean, it was a ridiculous amount. And then it's like all of the bass in the lagoons and lakes where I fish got together and said, "Never again!" It's been years since I've caught anything on a WP.

@flatcreek and I have fished some tournaments together. Good guy. I'm hoping we fish again when the temperatures cool down and I don't have to work every day.

How do we do it? Well, we don't fish with Whopper Ploppers in heavy weeds and lily pads. Instead, I use a Teckel Sprinker Frog. It's a hollow frog with a soft, spinning tail similar to a Whopper Plopper.

I have one Dobyn’s rod and it’s decent. But in the past year I have been buying Shimano Expride rods and I can’t say enough good things about then.

I have a Humminbird Helix 7 DI SI and utilize the YakAttack CellBlok and the YakAttack transducer arm attached to the CellBlok. I love this setup. If you’re interested, I have a Lowrance 5” Tripleshot (has side scan and down imaging) for sale. The only reason I switched was because my old eyes preferred a larger screen. DM me for more info.

With a net, a lemon wedge, and some Tony Cachere’s seasoning.

I'm not a Facebook fan and the only reason I have an account is for my Oculus Quest 2, but the guys at Seastream told me to check out a Seastream FB group and I did that today. I didn't see much on trolling motors, but I did see some great mods to raise the seat height. One thing I have always thought was that raising the seat a little bit would give you a better angle to pedal. increase stamina, and reduce any leg cramps. From what I read, that was exactly the case.