CountryboyinDC

I know years ago Falcon made them. I think now as rod lockers are 8' and sometimes more, fewer people want them. I'm pretty sure you could buy a blank like https://www.mudhole.com/Phenix-Super-Flipper-Blank-7-11-Telescopic-12-30lb-SF-711MH-5X and have a custom rod builder make you one. I saw one not too long ago custom made for the guy on a Seeker saltwater blank. He said it was perfect, it looked a might heavy for my tastes.

Very interesting post, and thanks for sharing the results of your comparison testing @papajoe222. I definitely want to test out that theory once the lockdowns allow that to be feasible.

I guess everyone's definition of true heavy would be different, but this rod is more powerful than say my MH St. Croix Avid, which I feel is pretty powerful for a MH. It's definitely more powerful than my MH G. Loomis IMX or MH Falcon Finesse jig rod, which is really on the light side of MH. But it's not as powerful as my Kistler KLX Feel 'n Reel Heavy. As for pitching into grass or really gnarly stuff, I'd be fine. Honestly, when I'm fishing from my kayak in grass, slowdowns, etc., if I'm not anchored with anchor pins, a 2 lb fish stands a chance of getting the better of me. The rod and tackle is not the issue, it's the boat.

I have that rod, and it's become my frog rod. That's a good price for that rod. I like a little slower rod for glide baits, but others may find it just to their liking. It's a true fast action, I'd say. You could definitely pitch with it, but it's not a flipping stick. I have drug a Carolina rig with it as well.

What sort of mileage are you willing to put in on your bike to go fishing? I really don't know much of the non-tidal Potomac below Great Falls. I also fish from a kayak, so that changes perception, in terms of how good a particular area is for wade fishing.

That would certainly raise your center of gravity considerably. I've seen plenty of people using cooler in place of seats, particularly SUPs, but a few kayaks. With a swivel and bike seat on top, you're nearly standing the whole time, stability wise.

How comfortable are you swimming? And by that, I don't by any means mean not having a PFD while you're in a vessel that you'd fish out of ever. I mean, almost anything you paddle has the potential to sink or turn over, and I call that swimming even if you're held up by your PFD. You can get a pretty inexpensive inflatable, down to a $20 raft. Not the same as a $1,000 kayak, but it'll get you off the bank. Sea Eagle has a lot options for the budget-minded.

Most of the male members of my family have served in the military back to the Civil War. I'll just name a couple of non-family members that I knew that were KIA on missions that I was on. Both obviously received Purple Hearts. CW5 James Weeks, Meritorious Service Medal (1 OLC), Air Medal (V device, 1 OLC), 160 Special Operations Aviation Regiment, died 16-May-2006. SGT Steven Ganczewski, Meritorious Service Medal, Bronze Star (V device), 2nd Platoon, A Co., 3/75 Ranger Regiment, died 17-Nov-2007.

Some of the touring and racing kayaks can go a lot faster than I can in anything I have, but they're not much for fishing out of. I think that motor solution you posted about originally is a neat idea. I try to have as few things with combustion engines as possible to keep things simple. But for someone looking to cover some smallmouth country without spending River Rocket money, that is pretty cool.

That would take some practice.

You can go upriver in a kayak, the whitewater folks call it attainment. I call it having no shuttle, but that's what I was left doing today. It sucks a lot worse in a 34" wide fishing kayak than I remember it being in my whitewater canoe a decade ago. That's probably a combination of serious decline in my physical condition and the kayak itself. It was worth the effort, since this is the first time I've been out fishing this year. But if I lived along a river like the Susquehana, there'd probably be a lot of attaining in my kayak fishing.

There is precedence for a swivel seat on a kayak - Nucanoe has one or more models. https://www.nucanoe.com/fusion-seat. The one I've seen in person has the ability to lock the swivel, and to me that would be important, as so much of your ability to propel and 'steer' a kayak is derived from your torso, although I know a lot of people with pedal driven ruddered kayaks rarely make use of this ability. @Darren.makes a good point about any height adjustment to the seat having a significant impact on the stability of your kayak, and it really doesn't take much raising of the seat to do that. If I'm in class 2, even easy class 2 rapids, I take the time to lower my seat on my kayak, and the high position is only about 4" higher. The other thing I'd be careful with is making sure that whatever mounting solution you come up with is not going to tear the deck out of your kayak. The seat has a surprising amount of force exerted to it. If you just screwed/lag bolted a bass boat/john boat seat to the deck of your kayak, I'd imagine you'd stand a fair chance of doing just that. I think that you'd want to spread this force over a fairly wide area on a rotomolded HDPE kayak. If you go through with it, I'd be interested to see how it turns out and helps you (or not, I guess).

We hillbillies used hocks and almost every part of the pig but the squeal. My granddad blew up the bladder and tried to tell me it was just like a balloon. I still use hocks for collards (made some last night) or black-eyed peas. I use smoked turkey necks too, but hocks are better. I buy my son's balloons at the grocery store, though.

The conventional Army has some of the worst food outside of school cafeterias, it's a "one meat, one starch, make a sandwich out of it" type of deal. The Air Force doesn't even clear their own trays, in many cases and I've only heard about Navy food, but supposed it's world better. The Ranger Regiment's DFAC (cafeteria) NCO competed on Iron Chef. That was one of the few benefits of being at the battalion right there at the flagpole in Ft. Benning. The food was pretty incredible, especially considering it costed less that $2 for breakfast.

Plugs, except the Whopper Plopper, I fish on mono, and I use 10 or 12 lb. I feel that anything over 10 lb sort of degrades the action, particularly walking baits. Braid is even better (never used 20 lb on a baitcast reel, but I'd imagine it's even better than 30 lb), but I have a tendency to get braid looped around the front treble. I've tried cutting off the forward-most hook, etc., but it's easier for me to just use mono to make up for my propensity to foul baits in this manner. Whopper Ploppers I fish on 50 lb braid, and I'll fish a buzzbait either mono or braid.

I know there are some rod makers and tackle repair types on here who can tell you how to do it right. For me, with a cheapie rod, I'd cut off the tip top, buy one of the Fuji $3 repair kits, and glue that tip top on. Ask me how many times I've done that for kid's rods. Here's the BPS link, but you can get them at big box stores, tackle shops, etc. https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/fuji-rod-tip-repair-kit

I typically have the leader long enough so that the main line to leader knot is between the reel and the 1st guide, which is probably around 6' most of the time. I change them out everytime I take the rod fishing. There are some people who want the knot on the reel spool when they set the hook. In my estimation, in bass fishing where the main (braid) line is way stronger than the leader most instances, the weak link is the terminal knot, particularly with flurocarbon leaders. I tried 30' leaders, but there are some reels (Daiwa baitcasters with the T-wing levelwind aperature) that don't do so well, and I decided it was probably to start with a fresh leader anyway. That's the part of the line that gets the most abrasion.

I definitely wouldn't add a barrel swivel, but I feel that braid is worth the effort. Line has a lot more to do with sensitivity perception to the angler than the rod (although there are other benefits to a light, high modulus rod blank). Some folks believe that sensitivity is not always a good thing, many of them much better anglers than I am. One such angler is a midwest finesse guru for whom the Ned rig is named. Me, I like braid and use it unless I have a specific reason not to, like for topwater plugs where the front treble gets fouled in braid due to the likeness of the line. I use the Crazy Alberto knot, which is a modified Albright, and it causes me few issues. For simplicity, no leader wins, and obviously that's the way a lot of folks here are going about it.

Definitely got your use out of the round Abus. I don't think I have a reel older than a 3rd generation Abu Revo that I'm using routinely. I like the Tournament MBs, no matter what the Shimano and Daiwa fans on here say. I haven't used the Speed Spool LFS, though.

I felt like the Curado 70 felt 'geary' too. I talked to another angler who directed me to get some bearings for the handle knobs. I ended up just getting a Metanium handle, which is longer and has bearings in the knobs. If you're going that route, you'll need the LH handle assembly from Tackle Trap or directly from Shimano. It made all the difference for me.

They float, I've never come across one that didn't. The tether is for if it somehow gets away from you. For sit in kayaks (SINKs), I think that's probably true, although you can definitely transport them gunwales up. The only boat I always transport gunwales down is a canoe. I put my my Coosa HD in a J-cradle on top of a car. Never again, it seemed as though I was bound to rip the rack off the ground. I now have a Yakima Big Fish rack for the times I use a roof rack rather than a truck bed. I think the rack is a fine idea. Easier still, just use a piece of 4"x4" cut a little wider than the kayaks placed across the gunwales, one in front, the other behind the seat. That's how I transport 2 SOTs at the same time. Your plan looks good otherwise.

I keep most all of the soft plastics I own in original bags in a bait binder. I'm in a kayak, so I put this binder of baits I'm not fishing at the moment in the front hatch to keep them out of the sun. If I had a boat with all the covered storage, I'd probably keep them in the Plano boxes with the terminal tackle I intended to use them with. Would be great to have the worms, hooks, weights, etc. in the same box.

Welcome @heavypic. I'd echo a lot of what @Allen Der wrote. 260 cm might be just what you need for that boat, but for most of the BB angler paddles, I would say 240-245 cm is right for me. I would recommend an adjustable ferrule one. One of my paddles is the BB wooden-bladed job with the adjustable ferrule and I like it pretty well. I'm about the same height as you and I paddle a Coosa HD with that paddle which is about the same width at the seat.

SC glass blanks are definitely heavier (although maybe not that much), and much have a much greater diameter than most comparable power graphite rods. I think they must have gone way down on wall diameter to make them as light as they are, but I haven't cut mine in half to check. They are enough greater in diameter that they won't fit in my rod holders that all my graphite rods do. As for performance, that's not something I feel I'm as qualified to answer as some of the other posters.

I have fixed quite a few holes in kayaks. This is a good approximation of the process I've used that was shown to me by a kayak fishing buddy. https://www.instructables.com/id/Fixing-a-plastic-polyethylene-kayak-with-a-hole-/ I had access to the hull of my kayak, but it wasn't as though I had a hatch right above the hole. I really don't think I'd put a patch on a sit on top kayak on the inside at any rate. I used a 5 gallon bucket I got from Home Depot as the patch material the first time I patched it and continued to cut pieces from it for the successive ones. I didn't use a torch, I used a heat gun I'd bought to melt wax on spit shined boots in the military. A lot of manufacturers will send you a patch piece if you ask for it, and I've kept the piece I cut out for a hatch on my pedal drive. Aesthetically, your kayak is going to look worse. My last kayak was red, with basically what looked like a road cone for the rear keel. It got some looks, and not the type that suggested that they were impressed. More like I'm pretty sure that guy drives a '87 Toyota pickup with a camper shell that never fit quite right, no muffler, and an inspection sticker he made on his cousin's color printer kind of look. The patches held for a really long time. The kayak was never completely dry on the inside like my current kayaks are, but I didn't have a noticeable amount more water coming in until I started putting patch on top of patch.