KSanford33

This is pretty accurate. Any pair of reasonably cheap neoprene hiking shoes will work well. I wear Vibram Five Finger shoes, but I'm weird and the places I go don't have any jagged rocks.

I did, upsize that is, not keep any. Keeping fish on a kayak can be tough. When I was younger, I used to think tournaments -whether they were golf, hockey, fishing, whatever- were important. Now that I'm older I realize the only thing that is important about any of them is that you enjoy the time you're out there. When I tried to upsize, I went to a Rapala DT-6 and hooked a good size pike, but as you can imagine, they don't help in bass tournaments either.

Hahaha! I've sat in the press box more times than I'd like to admit!

I know most all of you already know this, but I have to reiterate it: Chasing a missed fish with a Senko is MONEY! I went out yesterday to my local lake and was throwing a weedless topwater frog into the thickest slop I could find. I ended up catching several fish, as you would imagine. However, with every single missed hookup, I threw a wacky rigged Senko into the spot where I missed them and every single time they went after that too! Like I said, I know this isn't new to most of you, but this was my first time ever doing it, and the fact that I don't think there was a single time that the Senko didn't get hit amazed me. I feel like I can cover so much more water now using some type of searchbait and then following it up with a Senko if need be. It was so much fun.

I figured I'd put this out there for anyone to learn from my mistakes. I competed in my first kayak bass fishing tournament over the weekend at Cayuga Lake. I had a great time and learned a ton. For the TL;DR among you, I caught over 70" of fish during the tournament. Not bad for my first ever kayak tournament. The downside is that none of them was bass; they were all yellow perch. Here's what I learned: Preparation is EVERYTHING. Check and recheck all of your gear. I made the mistake of not checking the batteries in my headlamp, and of course, they were dead. That left me to get everything ready using the light from my kayak light. As far as things go, this was not a huge mistake. Not to worry though, I make those later. I did my pre-fishing the day before at the far northern tip of the lake since I already had my spot picked out for the actual tournament. I figured I'd see how things were there, and if they were great I could always adjust my plan for the actual tournament. The surface temperature was 55* (this will come into play later on), but all I caught was one rock bass, so I liked my choice of spots for the following day. I launched the following day farther south down the lake and saw that the water temperature was 46*. I decided to stick with it and go to my spot. This was my first major mistake. In hindsight, a tournament -even a one dayer- is a marathon. Even if it took me an hour to load back up and drive to the far north of the lake, that hour would've been worth it. I adjusted my gameplan on the fly and decided since the water was significantly colder it'd be smart to downsize my presentations. So I went with a ned rigged craw. I started fishing downed trees, brush piles, and docks in my spot. This worked great, for the aforementioned perch. I tried moving offshore a little, into 15-20ft of water, and continued catching perch. All the while, the top 8 competitors in the tournament were all working the far northern end and all caught 90+ inches of bass. This will be far from my last kayak bass tournament. Like I said, I had a blast. And just like everything else, the learning curve is steepest at the beginning. My advice to anyone considering entering a kayak bass fishing tournament is do it. Everyone was very encouraging and all said your first dozen tournaments or so are just a big learning experience. It's ~8 hours of fun fishing anyway.

I can't imagine! I do my best to only go places where I can unload everything reasonably close to the water just due to the weight. But again, I'll gladly take the weight, because it's the only downside to this kayak.

He handled that really well. I used to be a hothead when I was a kid, but I've learned one critical lesson as I've gotten older: I have a lot more to lose than the other guy. I have a job that requires a license that will be revoked if I'm convicted of a felony. And I'm going to throw all that away because some guy was an idiot on the water? This just happened to me on Sunday. I was on my home body of water and a fellow kayaker was working the shoreline while I was in one spot. He went around me by about 10ft. My golden rule when I go around other boaters is two cast-lengths, so this guy being within 10ft of me was way closer than I personally thought he should've been. But I said nothing. I'm not competing, I'm just out fishing. And if I chirp at the guy, what's the best case scenario? Best case, I make the guy feel like an idiot for coming too close to me, which does nothing for either of us. Worst case, things are much less friendly. I'm just trying to go out, catch a few fish, and go home. I don't want to complicate things unnecessarily.

I had a Lifetime Teton last year because I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy fishing from a kayak, so I didn't want to spend a ton on it. As it turned out, I love it, so I upgraded this year. I read @Koz review of the SeaStream Angler PDL and decided to take the plunge and go for it. I'm not big on spending that much for something sight unseen, but I'm very happy I did. It's a great fishing kayak. Not the lightest though.

Congratulations! I’m hoping to join you this year.

Ah, my fault! Thank you sir. I thought you meant the cliffs preserve just north of Lansing.

Thank you sir, but isn't the preserve on the eastern side, near Lansing? I grew up playing hockey in Lansing.

I'm fishing in my first tournament in a couple weeks, at Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes in NY. It's on a Saturday and there's roughly 30 people competing. Between those 30 and the regular weekend fishermen, I know the north end (which is known for bass) will be packed, so I'm thinking of fishing either the middle stretch or the southern end near Ithaca. I've seen the Bassmaster series videos from there, but they're all from early summer, so I'm not sure how much would apply for a day that's scheduled to be in the 50's with water temperatures in the high 40's. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

My PB was on a Strike King 1/2oz spinnerbait in 1991. It was near dusk and I just enjoyed throwing it. So I'm just throwing from shore and not thinking too much about it. It goes by a bush and BANG, this 4.5lb largemouth annihilates it. It even got my picture in this local fishing magazine. Pretty cool experience for an 11 year old kid. We'll ignore the fact that I haven't caught one bigger in the past 31 years... ?

You bring up an excellent point. I'm planning on upgrading to a boat within the next year or so, so if those upgrades would perform better in an actual boat, it'd probably be worth getting one that is upgradeable. Thank you sir!

Those are all excellent questions. The only reason I want to upgrade is because I feel like the Striker 4 is about as basic as it gets. Unfortunately, the rest is a matter of not knowing what I don't know. Does side scan work with kayaks? I'd love to get something that has a little more accuracy. Not that I think the Garmin is inaccurate, but it's tough to differentiate between weeds, baitfish, and actual fish. I think I'm more interested in the opinions of others and what they like and don't like about their setup.

So currently I have a Garmin Striker 4 on my kayak. It's a SeaStream Angler Pedal 12 (thanks to a review I read on here). I can't justify upgrading to LiveScope or anything like that yet, but are there any suggestions for something a little nicer? Thanks everyone.

Let’s stick to bass, but I’ll definitely listen to other species.

Excellent answer. Now how are you looking for that structure? Navionics, online, or with your sonar? Thank you sir.

That's fair. Let's say the current conditions where you are.

If I put you on a new lake, and said you had to catch fish regardless of the time of year or weather pattern, how do you do it? I give you 24 hours' notice, so you can go online if that helps. Go!

I've been thinking about how to more effectively fish offshore, as it's a big weakness of mine. Rather than reinventing the wheel, would it not make sense to use your fishfinder and once you find something worth fishing offshore, mark it with a buoy or waypoint, fish that area, and then move on and do the same thing elsewhere? This would eliminate the question of whether or not there are fish there and now it's just a matter of catching them. I think it's always best when you can eliminate any variables you can. I'm sure some of you may say duh, this is how you fish offshore, but like I said, it's always been a big weakness of mine because I've never known how to do it efficiently.

Knee jerk reaction is obviously jigs for me, but that’s not what I want to post about. Is there anything better than using a type of lure you don’t have confidence in and feeling that thump for the first time and you’re like, this thing actually works!

Yeah, I feel like @Bankc's answer went well-beyond just fishing. Life lessons on the bass forum...

This was a much deeper answer than I expected to get. Got me thinking.

I live in northeastern NY, so the water is still in the low to mid-40's. I went out the other day and fished a t-rig worm and a ned rig along some of the steeper drop-offs in the pond and came up empty. Once I got off the water, I immediately started thinking maybe I should've thrown a crankbait or a Zako or something else. Does anyone else second guess themselves on what (or where) they fished if they get skunked? I'd like to think I gave myself the best chance to catch something, but maybe I didn't.