Kayak Koz

I suppose that you could turn around and squat over it, too!

I once had a bass grab a Whopper Plopper 130 between the treble hooks, carry it off, and drop it. I walked over to that spot and sure enough there was a bed there. Still, crazy to see it grab the bait between the trebles.

Are you missing on the initial strike or are you reeling in the bass after the strike and it slips the hook?

A caveat to my earlier story. Ten days after the attacks I was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to see the Formula 1 race. Tensions were high, because with 250,000 people there many of us thought it was an ideal target for an attack. I remember two things about that day. The first is that F1 cars going by at 17k RPM's makes it feel like your ears are going to bleed. The second was how all of the Europeans in the crowd consoled and embraced the Americans. I had people come up and ask me if I was an American, offer their sympathies, and either shake my hand or hug me.

I was running a Marriott property in Lafayette, LA. On that day we were having our annual Marriott Quality Assurance inspection. At one point we passed the lobby and there must have been 50 guests watching the TV but I had no idea what was happening. When we started inspecting guest rooms I turned on the TV and found out what has happening. To his credit, the Marriott inspector ignored the TV and went on with their job. At that point I didn't care about the inspection. But here's where my story gets a little crazy and scary. When the press starting naming the hijackers one name stood out. Then it hit me. About 7 months before I was running another Marriott in Greenville, SC. As GM, many mornings I would be down in the restaurant greeting guests, talking to them in the lobby, and on that particular morning I jumped behind the front desk because we had a heavy number of checkouts. One guest came up and just handed me his key packet with the room number on it. He just stared at me and said nothing. I remember that he was wearing a light colored, short sleeved dress shirt. But the way he looked at me was with hatred or contempt. I thought maybe something was wrong with his stay. I asked him about that and he just glared. I handed him his receipt and he walked away. The name of the guest was Mohommed Atta. I recognized his face when they showed it on TV. I immediately called my old hotel, told them to print out his receipt and call the FBI. But wait, there's more. Early in my career I was the GM of another Marriott in the Portland / Scarborough area in Maine. A friend of mine was the GM of the Comfort Inn down the road. That's where one group of the hijackers stayed the night before the murdered people. I still remember that day and the next few days like it was yesterday.

I do have it looser this time. So far, so good, but I haven't been out on the water much the past 3 weeks. The water temp has been near 90 and the bass were not biting so I gave it a rest for a while. But for the past week the daytime temps have been only mid 80's and nighttime temps have been in the low 60's. That should have cooled teh water down a little, so I'm heading out in the morning. Honestly, I wonder why they don't have coated cables. I may try and find a few inches of some rubber tubing to slide over the cable, but I'm not sure if that will make it too large to thread through the hole. I may have to drill it out. Nevertheless, I still love this kayak. I just added a new Flambeau Premium Tuff Krate with some rod holders so I can bring 4 rods with me. The two stand up rod holders built in to the kayak are great. But the lay down ones aren't ideal for me with my YakAttack CellBlok battery mount and fishfinder along the rails. I was lucky with my order. Within two weeks of serious shopping it was available on the Waterways USA website. I'm pretty sure that Seastream / Feel Free owns Waterways. They are located near each other in NC and Waterways sells only Feel Free brands. But the price was cheaper buying from Waterways. Hopefully you live in an area where you have soft water year round and you get a chance to use it when it finally comes in. Let us know what you think when you get it. In the meantime, if you don't work out go ahead and start now. This thing is heavy to lug around!

If a new cable does not work, it sounds like the cable is coming loose from either the monitor or the PC. If that’s not the issue, first make sure there is nothing gunking up the cable connectors or the sockets. If that fails, see if the socket on your pc or the video card itself has come loose.

Before I decided to get a pedal drive. the SS127 was at the top of my list. It looks like a great kayak. I'm sure you will love it. Except the paddling part ?

I haven't fished much in the last six weeks. When even the local fishing guides are publishing stories that the bass and striper bite is bad, I can't find the motivation to get out there, especially in the heat.

Usually, the first 15-20 casts determine if it's going to be a good day fishing. I pick a spot that I know should be holding bass. If I don't at least get a strike, it's usually a long, unproductive day.

If I had a boat and 10+ rods I wouldn't use snaps because I would have baits already tied on when I hit the water. But fishing from a kayak, I bring 2 or 3 rods and it's much easier to use VMC Touch-Loc snaps to change baits then have to maneuver the rod while sitting on a narrow kayak and tying on new baits. When I bank fish, I would walk or bike and usually limit myself to one or two rods so it was easier to use the Touch Loc snaps than retying again and again and again. But the exception was baits like jigs and any soft plastics. For those I would ditch the snap and tie directly.

I'm definitely looking forward to the cooler weather so the fishing picks up again. The water temperature has been pushing 90 for over the past month, but we've now had three straight nights where the air temperature is in the low 60's so things should start cooling down. For the next week, daytime air temperatures will be lucky to see 90 and all of the nighttime temperatures are in the 60's. I've fished only a few times in the past month because the fishing has been so lousy even the guides are lamenting the slower than slow bite. But hopefully this week the water temperature drops enough that the LMB and stripers are moving again.

Some fish don't dig the jig - the prefer a good hula instead ?

Of all of the things I have bought for my kayak (fishfinder, paddle, storage, rods, reels, cables and locks, etc.) the best purchase I made was the CTug cart. Worth every penny. I can't begin to tell you how much a difference it made in pulling the kayak around. Once you find that sweet spot to put it, hauling it becomes that much easier (but up a steep hill in the heat is still a pain!). I do pull the pedal drive and lay it on the kayak, and my rudder will lock in the upright position. Somebody should work on that motorized Yak transport, Or you could put a CTug on each end, pull the pedal drive, and make like The Flintstones.

I've caught a TON of bass and big bass on buzzbaits each year and not once did I use a trailer. Just sayin'...

That's a really neat idea. So far my rudder is really solid, even in heavy chop. Like you, I think it's great to be able to set the bow angle and the rudder and just drift along and fish. I don't know how those paddle kayak guys get any fishing done on bigger bodies of water with the wind and boat wakes. That would be overkill. It would be better if I just got in a little better shape. Most of the time it's not a big deal to pull it up the hill, especially with the CTug cart and setting it at the proper balance point. But when it's 94 degrees out and I pedaled 5 miles out in the morning and pedaled 5 miles back in the midday heat it's no fun at all, especially when the summertime bite is really slow. I'm really looking forward to the cooler weather in the next few months.

When I used to play golf a lot, I remember almost every afternoon the lightning sirens would go off, we'd take cover, and it would storm like crazy for 20 or 30 minutes. Then the skies would clear, it would be sunny and hot, and we'd pick up where we left off on the course.

Yes. Is there any play in the rudder in heavy conditions. Also, I'm sure his 10 footer handles a bit different than a 12 footer in heavy conditions. I may eventually want to downsize to a lighter kayak as I get older and weaker. If I ever switch to another pedal drive, it's nice to hear what others are saying about their kayaks. And now that I have my own pedal kayak I can ask questions based upon my experience and what characteristics I find important to me. Before that, it was just a shot in the dark. I still love my Seastream, but it would be a lot easier to handle out of the water if I was younger and stronger and didn't have to haul it up and down a big hill. I really need to get an SUV to haul it to launch areas. Too bad cars are overpriced right now.

It's great when you make a big purchase like that on something totally unknown and you don't regret it. I do have a couple of suggestions based upon my own experience. Before you launch, take the pedal drive out and set it on the dock. Then launch, pull up to the dock, and grab the pedal unit. When you return, pull up to the dock, take out the pedal unit and place it on the dock before pulling the kayak out of the water. This makes it a bit easier getting the kayak in and out of the water. My kayak weighs just under 100 pounds with the seat and no drive, then I have my fishfinder, crate and gear. My pedal drive weighs about 22 pounds, so taking that out makes it a bit easier to get it in and out of the water. I'd also make sure you don't have any baits swinging free on your extra rods. When "it" happens, you'll know what I mean. Have you been out in windy conditions yet (10+ mph)? How does it handle in those conditions? Is it still stable? Is the rudder still stable when you set it and fish?

The other week I was out on my kayak and local weather predicted cloudy skies but no precipitation. I was fishing a narrow cove with a heavy tree canopy that blocked out most of the sky. Then I felt a sudden wind shift and temperature drop. I popped out of the cove and dark skies and lightning were approaching. Luckily, my launch point was in the other direction. But I was almost 2 miles away from that point. So now I had to make a choice - take the shorter path over open water with lightning coming or take the longer path skirting the shore. My normal pedaling cruise speed is about 3 mph, but I decided to kick it into overdrive and risk open water. When I hit 5.8 mph my Yak Attack transducer arm came shooting out of the water. I folded it up quickly and kept going with the storm closing in. By the time I made it to the docks I was sucking wind. But now I had to get the kayak out of the water, load it on my CTug, then pull it up a big hill to store in my hotel. I didn't even bother draining it or breaking it down. That was a good thing, because about a minute after I put it in storage the skies opened up and it got really nautical out there. Lesson learned. On my phone I turned my lightning and weather alerts back on.

When I bank fished in SC and went hopping from lagoon to lagoon it was usually for 4-5 hours. Now that I kayak fish on a larger lake it's still 3-5 hours. I would fish longer on the kayak, but it's been too dang hot. When I was bank fishing I could just op in my car, cool off, and head home. But in the kayak I have to pedal back X amount of miles, strip down the kayak, drain the water, load everything back up, and then pull it up a steep hill back into storage in my hotel. So for however long I fish I need to factor in the toll the heat will take on my on the way back and packing up. When things cool off this fall I expect I'll stay out on the water much longer.

I have a Mac Mini that I use for coding iOS apps and I hate it. I don’t know what it is, but nothing on it seems intuitive. I’m not an Apple basher. In fact, I have an iPhone and an iPad. I just don’t like the Apple OS.

I'm prett sure I'm going to stick with the long term reliability of an Intel CPU. The people that rave about AMD are usually ones that build new systems or upgrade every few years and to them long term reliability of the CPU is not a factor. I'll do some more research this week, but I'm leaning at staying with Intel.

I did some reading on the ASRock motherboards on those systems and the biggest complaint was that those boards overheated with both the CPU's and the GPU's. I'm going to look into some beefier MOBO's for those Ryzen's.

Intel is due to release 1th generation chips soon, but I'm not sure if that's going to impact 10th generation pricing right away. I actually think RAM and SSD's are still reasonably priced - it's the GPU's that are ridiculous if you can find them. I've kind of just glanced at AMD's because I have been a fan of Intel, but with the benchmarks I'm seeing with integrated graphics on the AMD's I need to take a longer look. I actually have a cousin who is a bigwig at NVIDIA, but he works with the US military, NASA, and SpaceX on double secret probation top secret stuff, but maybe I'll see if he has some connections to the video card division. I've never asked him for a favor before, but with the shortages maybe he can call in a favor. It looks like one CPU cooler fan on there and two exhaust fans at the rear. Is that it or is there an intake fan on the side as well? How's the temperature level of the CPU and components? I'd be a little worried about airflow if I added a GPU, even one with fans.