Kayak Koz

I'm going to say 3 pounds even. 🤣 That's a joke. I know from even recent experience that losing what appears to be a good fish is frustrating. The good news is that you have a location and technique that worked. I'm sure that you'll be back there soon and figure it out.

Terrazzo tile looks nice 😁😁 There are all kinds of rubber, EVA foam, and Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate decking rolls and squares.There's even pour-in-place rubber. I imagine that other than cost, the biggest concern would be keeping the deck as cool as possible in the sun.

If there's vegetation at the top, I love to start and stop a frog over those mats and have the bass blow up on it. Just make sure you're using a heavy rod with 50+ pound braid because you'll be hauling in a lot of grass with each catch. Also, don't set the hook too soon. Let that bass turn and go back down and clear the mat. You're hookup rate probably won't be that good, but you'll have a blast. The other option is a heavy punching set up.

The USPS has been nothing but problems for me. I've had multiple times when they refused to deliver because they said the box was too heavy. If they accept the package, the need to deliver it. I've also had numerous instances at work where they said they could not deliver the package because the business was closed. Never mind that I run hotels that are always open 24 hours a day.

I think that a lot of people forget to try and fish near the ramp.

OK - so here's the kicker to my "bad luck" weekend. As I mentioned, I lost two fish at the boat that would have easily put me in the top 5. But I also had entered the Native No Limits tournament that pays $1,000 each hour for the biggest bass. I caught the second biggest bass of the tournament, but the guy who caught the biggest of the tournament did it the same hour that I did so I got nothing.

I literally had a 3 minute ride to my first waypoint at the Santee Cooper even and I caught all of my fish in that area. I headed straight out from the ramp across the Taw Caw creek channel.

For me, Livescope is a double edged sword. It's easy for an amateur like my to get too caught up in it. And what you get out of it is what you put into it. I've listed to podcasts were pros stated it took them hundreds of hours of playing with it to understand it, and the majority of hours they were not actually fishing. Yes, it's really cool to see bass sitting on deep water timber, toss a worm out there, and watch them eat it as it sinks. Or see a bass out there and watch it turn and hit your minnow. What I should do is use it more to fish offshore more often, but I'd rather crash the banks and power fish. I use FFS more to find structure more than find fish. For example, I rarely used it last week and when I did it was to help see the edge of the hydrilla. I do use it a lot to look under docks. I keep telling myself I need to go out there a bunch of days with no fishing rods and just work on finding fish offshore with FFS, but I never do it. What I'm getting at is that I don't rely on FFS. But maybe I should learn to be an expert at it and rely on it more.

Awesome!

My son is 20 years old now, but when he was 11 or 12 he caught a 5.5 pound bass and was on top of the world. A few days later I reminded him that there were people out there that fished for 40+ years and have never caught a bass that big and, in fact, that might be the biggest bass he ever catches and he should always savor that moment,

But are you having fun? My first kayak was a Seastream Angler pedal drive. It was made of cheap plastic, had no storage other than the tank well, and cost maybe $1,200. It was a bare bones pedal drive - but I loved that thing. In one way I loved it more than my AP because I felt more connected to the water and nature in it. The catalyst for buying my AP was because I live in the deep south and it is really hot and humid for a lot of the year and I fish big lakes and cover a lot of water and I'd be wiped out at the end of the day pedaling that thing 8-10 miles. If I was younger that probably wouldn't have been a big deal. It all snowballed from there as I dropped more money and started doing 4-5 tournaments a year. Now I have this beast. It's still great, but as I said, it's turning into a dinosaur.

I actually think part of the reason is that the hooks have changed. I think they are more brittle than years before. For example, before I could easily bend the hooks a bit upward and that seemed to improve my hookup ratio. But when I try to bend the Spro frog hooks they just snap. Maybe I'll look into changing the hooks to something I can bend and see if that helps.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check out their boats.

I feel bad with the people who made those long drives only to have the tournament cut short. I did the math. If those two fish that I lost at the boat were 20” each I would have finished 7th. If they were 22’s or 23’s as I suspected I would have been second or third. So today I’m kicking myself a little bit. But I felt I gave them good hook sets. They both fought a lot and breached. Fishing with frogs is fun, but those are the risks.

I though about buying an NK300 to give me the option of using that stern mount or the Minn Kota that comes with the AP. But I am worried about stability and being on plane with a stern mount, so I decided against it. Plus, tournaments are limited to one motor only. I’ll sit tight for now and revisit the topic next winter.