Kayak Koz

Welcome aboard! When I was living in the SC Lowcountry I was initially frustrated because I thought the warmer winters meant bass fishing would be good year round. But temperature is relative. So up north the water might be cold for a bass and cause their metabolism to slow at 40 degrees, while in the south that same thing might happen when the water is 55 degrees. What I found lagoon (pond) fishing in the winter is that it was better to fish for crappie! But when the water warms, you're going to find that all of those hundreds or thousands of stormwater lagoons around you are holding bass, and there will be plenty of 5+ pound bass. Just keep an eye out for the alligators.

I've been on a bit of a shopping spree lately, mostly on Amazon since I live out in the boonies. Last week I bought some Huk gear including a tournament rain jacket, a new gaiter, and a long sleeve pursuit vented shirt. I also picked up a pair of $30 water shoes for when I'm on my kayak. The water is too cold to test them out in the water, but they are quite comfortable. And if they don't hold up more than one season they were only 30 bucks. Today I hit the TW website and bought a few spools of power pro braid, new braid scissors, and a handful of rod sleeves. I looked at some baits, but really didn't buy anything. I can't really think of any baits I need right now. I made some non-fishing purchases this week as well including a DJI Mini 2 Drone and a DJI OM 4 SE. I have an idea for a quick movie / ad for my hotel and these will help me accomplish that. FOX Sports was at my hotel last year, and in exchange for a free room they gave me the rights to the drone footage they shot around my hotel, but it really wasn't that good. I grabbed some nice still photos from it, but the camera movements from the video were a bit jerky and the flight paths were basic an uninteresting.

I can catch fish hand lining or with a cane pole, so what's on the end of that line is more important.

My heart rate begs to differ. The time from first movement to foot plant - when done properly - is one second or less. Plus I don't have TV timeouts or a batter getting set in the box to delay the next pitch. There's actually a lot more to it than just throwing to get the heart rate pumping. The misconception many people have is that you throw to warm up. In actuality, you warm up before throwing. It's a pretty solid 30 minute routine just to get ready to throw. You should check out the National Pitching Association and the Team Mustard app. There's a lot more to the pre-throwing routine than just stretching. The app is absolutely amazing in helping with not only mechanics, but everything about being a pitcher from nutrition to the mental game to mechanics and video analysis. I haven't put myself on it yet, but I use it with my son and with some of my players.

I'm in my late fifties and need to get in better shape. I don't eat junk food or fast food, and I eat my veggies, but I don't get enough exercise - especially over the winter. That will change some once the water warms and I can get out on my pedal kayak, but I still need to do more. I bought some weights a few weeks ago and use them 20-30 minutes every other day. Baby steps. But I wanted something that was fun for me and to get in some cardio and then it came to me - pitching! Other than throwing batting practice to youth baseball and middle school players, I haven't thrown a real pitch in over 30 years. I'm certainly not ready to do that now, but I'm getting ready. I did my "warmup to throw" routine and then brought a net and a bucket of balls out in the back yard and got at it. My brain knew what to do, but my body was not ready to comply just yet. I wasn't trying to throw hard (I bet I didn't top 55 if that), just trying to get into a rhythm and find some of my mechanics again. No video, no radar gun, just out there having fun and grumbling at myself for not getting it right. But in a fun way. I had a lot of fun out there and got the blood pumping. I quit at 50 pitches because frankly, I was out of gas even just taking it easy. My arm feels great, but my shoulder is a little stiff and I'll probably feel it in the morning. But I don't care. It felt great out there, "pitching" a baseball again. I'm going to keep at it, and when I feel like I'm ready I'll break out the video, radar gun, and use the Team Mustard app to analyze my pitching and see if the old man still has it. I think a reasonable target for my age is to throw 65-70 mph by the fall. My 16 year old son laughs at that because he's throwing 87-88 right now. Heck, I barely threw 84 in college, so there's no way I can get up near 80 now.

There's a web browser extension for Firefox and Chrome. called Fakespot that you can use to help spot fake reviews. It's also available for Android and iOS.

Welcome to the new normal. Even when inflation recedes, most prices today are here to stay. Some may dip a bit, but most will not.

The weather is wonky in the southeast this time of year. Nighttime temperatures are in the upper 20's and low 30's, maybe some 40's, and daytime temperatures are in the 60's. We're about to have a stretch of 5 days in a row where the temperature reaches the upper 60's. So while it feels like great fishing weather, the water is still cold and the bass haven't started moving yet. Heck, I haven't even seen baitfish in our cove yet. I know this weekend I'm going to be tempted to go out on my kayak, but I'll probably just bank fish the mouth of the cove and see if the bass are moving yet. I think we're probably 3 weeks before the fishing starts picking up again.

It's a font called Blacksword. I probably spent 3 hours looking at different fonts on different websites and trying them out to see how they looked. As soon as I typed our hotel name in that font I knew it was exactly what I wanted. It was a challenge for a newbie like me to cut on the scroll saw. Veterans could easily whip through it in no time on a continuous cut, but I plodded along. It took two tries to get the letters cut halfway decent and then a lot of sanding to get to the finished product. I have to say I am proud of the finished product. At one point I was afraid I bit of more than I could chew. Fun Fact: I covered front desk shifts over the holidays so my associates could have some time off. Since the hotel was slow, I set the scroll saw up at the front desk and cut the letters right there. It actually turned out to be a great talking point with guests.

Thanks. Then here's photos without the blur effect. Right now the logo is held up with velcro picture tags, but once I have the nerve I will glue it. I need to trace the letters as well, because getting the correct angle and lining them up is a pain.

Since I moved to GA I haven't done much woodworking because I've been busy with work at the hotel, lack of work space, and the weather. The house I rent doesn't have a garage, and all of my equipment is crammed into a screened in porch. But recently I had the need to complete a project. One nice thing about my hotel is that the owner gives me a lot of leeway with just about everything. One of those things was designing a new logo for the property as well as coming up with a new color palette for everything from the logo and stationary to the guest room remodeling. This is all part of repositioning the hotel in the market. When I got to the hotel, the front desk reception area was U-G-L-Y and I knew it had to change. That area had this ugly, 17 year old yellow/gold wall vinyl with a picture of a local golf course on the main wall. I knew it had to change, but it wasn't in my renovation budget. So I spent about a three weeks pulling down the wall vinyl, repairing and floating out the walls, and then painting the area. It took that long because as GM I have more pressing duties. I also wanted to put our new logo on the wall behind the front desk. The trouble is I didn't have the budget to have it made out of metal (my preference) or even cut in wood with a CNC machine. So I decided to do it myself. The logo itself was easy. It was cutting the lettering that I was unsure about. I'm no stranger to woodworking and enjoy making simple furniture, serving trays, and other things but cutting out script letters would be near impossible with a jig saw or any other tools that I had. So I figured, what the heck - I'll buy a scroll saw. How hard can it be, right? It looks easy on the Youtube videos. It wasn't as easy as I thought, especially working with 1/8" thick project board. I broke a few letters along the way, but with some practice and some sandpaper I think it actually came out pretty good. The wall background was the perfect color to make the logo pop. The ironic thing is now I'm considering buying my own CNC machine when I move into a new house with a garage later this spring. I've attached some photos below, but you'll note I blurred out part of the name so as not to violate any policies on promoting my business on this forum. But you can see some of the lettering I cut.

My seat does not have a vertical adjustment. I had thought about trying to increase the height, but the seat frame rests in u-shaped slots so raising it would probably mean bolting another piece on top of that, and that would be a pain. Also, my kayak is very stable - something I appreciate being an old guy. I'd hate to mess with the COG, especially with the rough conditions I encounter on my lake.

I think you will find that as you get more time on the water with your kayak that positioning your kayak for where you are casting eliminates much of your issue. That being said, I've clanked a rod against another rod more than once. I also have the added degree of difficulty of casting over my pedal unit and around my fish finder. But by far the biggest pain is when I navigate under a low underpass and have to remove all of my rods from the rod holders and hold onto them while pedaling and steering. I do have lay down rod holders, but they are a pain with 7 foot plus rods.

The temperature is barely going to top 40 degrees here today, but beginning Tuesday the daytime temperatures will be 60+ for the foreseeable future. Night time temperatures will be in the 30's and 40's for the most part, but the warming trend is here. The water temperature in Oconee is still only 48-50 degrees, so I'm not willing to put the kayak in the water for a while. I fished the docks of my hotel for an hour or so over a few days and there was no activity in our cove, not even bait fish.

I grew up in Newtown, CT and as kids we would ride our bikes and fish Taunton pond, another little pond outside a convent, and I remember a small pond with an old pump house where we used to fish. I remember catching yellow perch, bluegill, and the occasional bass. We also did a lot of camping and I remember fishing at Bantam Lake (CT) and Lake Bomoseen (VT). I also remember one time it snowed in the summer in VT and we had to go buy some warm clothes, In my early teens we took trips to Lake Nipigon up in Canada - north of Lake Superior - yo fish for pike. We stayed in cabins and the cabin owners had a HUGE dog they names Sasquatch. One year we went up there and Sasquatch was gone. Poor guy got hit by an 18 wheeler - and totaled the truck! I pretty much stopped fishing in high school and didn't fish for about 35 years. When my son turned 7 we started fishing local lagoons and I got hooked on fishing for bass. That was 9 years ago. Now I own way too many rods and reels and a ton of tackle, not to mention a pedal kayak. And now that my son is a butthead teenager he hates to fish, but I still love to get out there as much as I can.

We're you hanging out with Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown - the baddest man in the whole d**n town?

I don't follow football anymore (HUGE baseball fan) so I don't have a prediction. But I saw an article that Mickey Guyton, Jhené Aiko, and Mary Mary are the performers at the Super Bowl this year. I have no idea who any of those people are. With that, I'm feeling especially old tonight.

You won't know anything until you try. Weather, water temperature, time of year, time of day, forage, and dozens of other factors come into play. As you gain more experience, you will become more confident in narrowing down your options. For now, have some fun with different baits and techniques. When you're confident you gave it your best shot and still have not got a bite, move to the next spot. Personally, if I'm not fishing with electronics I'm not going to site there for 45 minutes and try half a dozen different baits. Heck, watch the pros on TV. Most of them cover lots of water until they find a spot or a pattern.

I have the Flambeau Tuff Krate Premium. The difference between this one and the standard is that it has two compartments, and for me that come in handy. I'll use the top compartment for things like gaiters and gloves, a snack, fishing tools, sunscreen, etc. It hold a ton of gear and it's easy to overpack and take on a lot of weight. But I do prefer it of the standard milk crate that I had been using.

OK, so what are some of the greatest album titles of all time? I'll start it off with a few: Meaty, Beaty, Big, and Bouncy - The Who The Great Burrito Extortion Case - Bowling for Soup

I don’t have the stones to kayak in cold water, even here in the south. The surface water temperature here at Lake Oconee was 55 as of last week. I’ll wait until it hits 60. To be honest, air temperature and wind is also a big factor for me. I don’t mind windy days in the spring or summer, but I don’t want to be out there in 45 degree weather with wind.

Between being crazy busy at work and cold temperatures I had not been able to get out and test my new Shimano Curado 150 DC and Shimano Expride combination. But this afternoon the temperature got up to 50 degrees, making it feel like a balmy spring day after weeks of cold. Today was supposed to be a day off for me, but that didn't work out, as usual. Today my phone was ringing off the hook and I was trying to punch rooms for the guest room painting part of the renovations and I just needed a break to clear my head. So I took 20 minutes, went down to our docks, and tossed a 3/8 oz spinnerbait on my new setup. When that first cast hit the water, my only thought was, "Wow!" With little effort that cast easily went 15 feet further than with my Curado K or any of my Lew's reels. It was easy to see that because I was casting in our cove where I cast to the opposite shoreline and docks along the cove. I had set the tension as suggested in the manual, but found I had to tighten it up a bit because the spool moved so freely after taking my thumb off it after casting. With a little more "oomph" I was casting 20 feet further than normal, but still not giving it maximum effort. If you're a boater, the extra distance is probably not a big deal. But if you're fishing from the bank, this can come in handy. It should be noted that on my standard reel I use very little braking and keep the spool fairly free. I believe this was an apples to apples comparison in casting distance. As far as the Expride goes (obviously still the 2021 model). it's extremely light but feels like it has a good backbone. I didn't catch anything or even get a bite, but I was only out there 20 minutes. I'll know more when I actually catch something or try dragging a bait along the bottom. A little extra distance can probably be attributed to the rod, as I have the 7' 2" MH model. Most of my general purpose rods are just 7' and a few 6'6" using that same 40 pound braid. It might be the little bit of extra length that I'm not used to, but I found myself hanging my casts a few feet to the right of where I thought I was aiming. Usually I'm pretty accurate. But the rod feels great and the balance feels good to me. Anyway, I think I have a new favorite combo in my arsenal. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I can't wait to land something on this combo.

The problem is more likely to happen with Firefox. The first thing to do is disable your **** and see if that fixes the issue. But the likely cause is your privacy settings, what type of tracking you allow, or what type of scripts you allow to run (i.e. tracking). My guess is that BPS is aware of the issue, but it is more important for them to be able to track users through the website than implement a work around.

Once again, the prognosticators were wrong. No snow here, but the temperature was below freezing all night. There are black ice warnings out, but I'll never know because I have no reason to head out today. It's kind of nice having nothing to do today except a few chores around the house.

Last week's forecast of snow and ice fizzled out here in central GA. But the forecast for tonight calls for some snow and icing conditions. To prepare for that I have some Sriracha chili in the slow cooker that will be ready later tonight and carry me through the weekend. Unfortunately, the three day weekend I had planned is off as I need to punch (inspect) rooms that the painters are turning over on Sunday. But that's OK since it's too cold to be outdoors. I'll try again next weekend.