Kayak Koz

I have a Lowrance Hook2 5 with the tripleshot transducer (sonar, down scan, side scan) on my kayak. This is my first year getting a lot of use out of a kayak and my first foray into a fish finder. So here are some thoughts: 1) Where are you going to put the battery? I don't have any hatches in my kayak, so I opted for the Yak Attack CellBlok that mounts on my rail and then the fish finder mount is on top of that. I can bend the mounting arm down, but even then it leaves a high profile that can be another obstacle when casting or bringing in a fish. My pedal drive is the other obstacle. If you use a rail mount for your battery, you're going to want a lighter battery. I have a lightweight Dakota Lithium 12V 7A battery that works fine as it only has to power my fish finder. Because I have side scan with my transducer, I also use the Yak Attack Switchblade transducer arm that is also mounted to my CellBlok. I may experiment and put the CellBlok behind my seat and then put the transducer arm and the mount separately on the rails. But what I am getting at is plan it out, and I wouldn't make anything permanent until you experiment with placement for a while. 2) I bought a reconditioned Hook2 5 directly from the Lowrance site and saved a ton of money. It looked brand new and it works great. So for your first fish finder you don't necessarily have to go cheap to see if you like it, and you don't have to blow a ton of cash and then find out you don't like it. 3) A fish finder is not a magic bullet. Admittedly I do not spend enough time using it to map and analyze areas. I get distracted by actually fishing. I'm tempted to go out on the water without any fishing gear and force myself to explore, analyze, marl, and map more areas on my home lake. I need to make better use of my side scan and down scan capabilities. As others have stated, yes, the side scan works on a kayak. But again, your better using it to analyze areas first and then go back and fish them. Don't expect it to be of much use while you're sitting there drifting and fishing.

I never cut school. Between hockey and baseball I played sports year round, and if we were not present at school in the morning we could not practice or play in games after school.

The only correct answer is a buzzbait.

I'm a transplanted Yankee ? True story - one day I was sitting in the waiting area while getting repairs done on my car. An old timer walked in and sat down while waiting for his own car to be serviced. He carried on a conversation with me for about 30 minutes, and with that heavy drawl of his I only understood about 20% of what he was saying. But I smiled and nodded a lot.

The time I spent fishing this year decreased about 90% compared to the last five years or so. Part of that was due to work, but most of it was due to location. I know that's hard to believe since I actually run a hotel on a big lake. But in the past I lived where there were thousands of lagoons holding bass. I could drive, bike, or walk from lagoon to lagoon and bank fish at any time in thousands of productive spots. Now I have to haul the kayak down to the lake and then pedal for a few miles to get to semi productive spots. As for production, I caught very little this year and only one five pounder and one six pounder for decent sized fish. I used to catch 5 pounders almost every week fishing the banks. Contending with pleasure boaters is also a hassle. I'd rather deal with the occasional alligator while bank fishing. That being said, I think once I get a new vehicle that can haul my kayak to other launches and lakes I'll get my motivation back.

@flatcreek made the drive out to Lake Oconee today to take me out fishing on his boat and show me a lot of the lake I have not accessed with my kayak. First off, he's a nice guy and I enjoyed spending the day with him and the conversation throughout the morning and afternoon. As for the fishing, well, it was a tough day out there. I think he landed three on the day (maybe four) and I ended up with two. None were worthy of a photo op, but it was nice that neither of us got shut out. Hopefully the lake continues to cool and things pick up soon. What was interesting for me is that I caught both of mine on an underspin with a paddle tail. First off, I never fish those. But I had one in my tackle because it belonged to my father who passed away last October. I had kept some of his tackle, but most of what he had was for northern pike and he didn't really have any bass gear. Since he passed away I have wanted to catch something on one of his old baits and it finally happened today. So, it was a beautiful day on the lake with good company and we landed a few fish. Thanks @flatcreek, I hope we can do it again. I'm more than happy to drive out your way next time.

Take a look at my pontoon style hull below. But with the C-Tug, the surface that the kayak rests on can either lay flat or be angled. Just set the kayak on it and it will angle itself to the kayak. Unlike a cheap cart I tried, my kayak has never slipped while resting on the C-Tug. For me this is important, because I transport my kayak up and down a steep, windy sidewalk to and from my hotel down to the lake behind the hotel.

Get the C-Tug. Don't make the mistake I made and try something cheaper, no matter how enticing it may be. I can guarantee that you won't regret getting the C-Tug. I can't say the same for any other cart.

I moved from SC to GA and sometimes it's like I moved to another country. One day I was waiting while my car was being fixed and an old timer sat near me and started talking. Friendly guy, but I think I understood only about 25% of what he was saying.

It's finished and it's beautiful! I did end up installing my old NVIDIA GT 1030 video card so I could utilize my dual monitor setup. My monitors are still old and use either DVI or HDMI and my new motherboard has HDMI and Displayport. It's probably time to upgrade monitors as well. My cabling is a little messy on the back side, but no one sees that anyway. As you can see from the photos, it's really clean - and sparse - on the inside. The photos were taken before I installed the video card. I really like the TUF Gaming case. All the interior illumination is on the stock settings, and at some point I'll go into the ASUS software and start playing around with it. Now comes the fun part of re-installing some software and transferring data and files.

Yes - I understand that my transducer reading is only the temperature at that shallow depth, but it is relative to the depths throughout the lake. In the part of the 29 mile long lake that I fish, there is very little cover other than docks. There's no aquatic grass along the shore, no lily pads, and almost no aquatic vegetation. It's also relatively shallow (3-20 feet deep), compared to other areas of the lake with depths approaching 100 feet and areas with more drop offs and depth changes. Nighttime fishing didn't offer any better results. That being said, when the guides that make their living from finding the fish aren't locating or catching the LMB and stripers you know it's tough out there. The good news is daytime temps have been in the mid to low 80's and we've had a week plus of nighttime temperatures in the 60's Next week the nighttime temperatures will be on the 50's. According to the guides, my area of the lake should become more active again soon.

I haven't fished much in the past month because the fishing has been just lousy. Water temperatures were 90 degrees and even the local fishing guides were lamenting how poor the bass and striper fishing was. Then I come here on Bass Resource and see mostly northerners posting about all of the great summer fishing going on and frankly, I got a bit jealous. But then I remembered - come December my lures won't bounce.

I stand to stretch and sit to fish. I'm afraid that if I tried to land a fish while standing I'd rip one of my legs open on one of the pedals - or trip over one and fall in!

The guy pulled out of the parking lot and immediately drove back to the boat dealer. He probably asked for a refund.

Probably another 2.5" SSD - something easy to pop out and bring back and forth to work. Thumb drives are great for transferring data. but not great for working off of. Maybe the NVMe fits that bill. I don't know - I never used one. Remember, my last build is 11 years old.

I find that very interesting as most people use longer, beefier rods for topwater baits. So why do you choose the shorter, medium rod for topwater baits?

The build is overpowered, but that's because of future upgrades and additions, especially a good video card setup once prices come back to earth. I plan to give VR a try, and that will require more power to push more pixels. Heck, the 11 year old PC I built has a 1000W PSU. PSU's are fairly cheap, so I chose to future proof now, I decided on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 for now because I changed cases and went with the ASUS TUF Gaming FT301. If I go with an AIO liquid cooling unit it would have to be a single fan on the back of the case or a dual fan on the front face as there is not enough space on the top of the case for a unit. For now I'll just put some plain 120mm fans up there. If I don;t like the case I can always drop everything in my big NZXT tower. But I like the look of the ASUS and I really don't like the big tower cases anymore. I'm also probably add a second SSD for data and not use one of my HDD's. I'll see how it goes, first. Everything is being delivered tomorrow, so I'll probably at least start the build tomorrow night after work. Cabling always takes the longest to figure out. I've got plenty of velcro and cable sleeves to try and keep everything nice and neat.

Klu? Klu Haywood? ?

Do you have a kayak PFD? The cut is different than a standard PFD and it makes it a little bit easier. That being said, I did add a St. Croix Mojo Yak rod to my arsenal because it has a shorter butt end, but not one of those silly pistol grips. I only wish they made that rod in a 7' or even 6' 6" MH. The 7' version is a medium, and the MH is 7' 6". For someone like me who brings only 3 rods on the water and changes baits, wielding a 7'6" rod on a kayak can be cumbersome. But I do like that Mojo Yak rod. I recently bought the Flambeau Outdoors 455TKP Tuff Krate and it's pretty good. I do like the separate top storage area for things like tools, gloves, gaiters, and a small Plano of frequently used baits and soft baits.. You will need to add a bungee or some string so the lids don't open all the way over so they are out of reach. Kayak hooksets are a bit different. On the bank or even a boat you can plant your feet. But on a lightweight kayak, the kayak can shift and move when you set the hook. Just wait until you get into a decent sized fish that starts pulling you around. That freaked me out a little at first. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. Making a big purchase like that is no fun if you have buyer's remorse.

Very nice! But isn't the "big screen TV" going to get in the way of your fishing? ? Seriously - it took me a while to figure out where I was most comfortable with my Lowrance, and I have the 5" screen. I tried both the left side and the right side (my pedal drive is in the middle) at various points along each rail. I finally decided to keep it on the left side, as close to my seat as possible. And instead of the mount sticking up, I lay it down almost parallel to the top of my YakAttack CelBlock that it sits on.

This has been an agonizing (hyperbole) process trying to decide what combination of components I want to use and trying to stay within a particular price range or buying something pre-built with a better video card option and having it cost another $100-$200. If I build on my own I decided to go with a CPU with an internal GPU and compare that to an old NVidia 1030 card that I can put in there. Here's what I have so far: Intel Core 15-11600k 3.9 GHz ASUS B560-A ROG STRIX with built in WiFi G Skill Ripjaws 2x8MB DDR4-3200 RAM Crucial MX500 1TB SSD (I also have a HDD from my existing PC) Thermaltake Versa J24 RGB Case EVGA 650BQ Semi Modular PSU The build price for that is $789 (without CPU cooling). But unfortunately I need to add Windows 10 and that bumps it another $140. But I'm torn on what to do with the GPU cooling. I can save some money and go with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 ($55) or go with the Corsair iCUE H100i water cooling system for $129. If I go with the Hyper 212 I could actually save another $30 by using the ASAUS B560M motherboard instead because I won't need the pump headers. With the liquid cooling the price comes to $1,044, which leads me to the build or buy decision. I can pick up a Cyberpower PC for about the same price, but it has the GTX 1660 Super video card (normally about $200, but $600+ now because of chip shortages). But it has half the SSD storage, half the RAM, and more than likely cheaper components. So I think I would still rather build than buy and just add a better video card when the prices come down. So, do you guys prefer the AIO water cooling solution for your builds or a standard fan / heatsink?

'64 here. Bicycles with banana seats and sissy bars. You would stomp back on one pedal to brake. If you did it right on the pavement you would get tire squeal and leave a nice skid mark. Riding your bike 5-10 miles to go to the town park, the store to buy candy, or go fishing. Heading out at first light to go and play with your buddies and not come home until sunset. There were always 8-12 kids hanging out together. Playing army with plastic guns. Having neighborhood wiffle ball and football games in the yard. No parents allowed, If you got hurt you spit on it, rubbed some dirt on it, and kept on playing. BB Gun wars. Metal Jarts. Acorn wars with wrist rockets. Kill Ball (hit a tennis ball high in the air and then stand under it and let it hit you in the noggin). Walking a mile to the bus stop in the rain, snow, or heat. Encyclopedias. Doing real chores as a kid. Having a job as a teenager while going to school, playing sports, and dating.

So now we're up to 9 no hitters in MLB this season. Incredible. But here's something more incredible - the Cleveland Indians have been no hit THREE times this season. But as Ron Popeil used to say, "But wait - there's more!" Zach Plesac has been the starting pitcher for the Indians in all three of those games. BTW - Indians have no hits through 5 innings again today. I thought it was tough being a Yankee fan this year, but Cleveland takes the cake.

Everyone here in the south: "What the heck do you mean your water temperatures DROPPED in late July?"

It looks OK - for a truck ? Here's a shocker to a few on BR - the other day when I was searching the web for a possible new vehicle I looked at some small and mid-sized trucks as well. But no matter the vehicle, whatever I like is on short supply or not available. If it is available, the prices are ridiculously high. I'm still going to wait.