dickenscpa

Good to know, I didn't realize that. I really thought they were that stringent to almost looking to pop you. I do remember Dustin Connell in one of his videos he stopped at a gas station and some guy walked up jabbering and he stopped him and said, "whoa! I can't get info."

I don't have much to add to the core of the thread but these two little blurbs: 1) Living in TN I have a metric ton of pro fisherman as clients and I've had more than one tell me they have to be very careful especially when gassing up very close to where they'll be fishing with a wrapped boat and truck. They've told me people will whip out cell phones to video and start giving out random facts or gibberish hoping to get that angler in trouble if they don't like that angler. Now so many pros video their "travel blog" maybe that cuts it off, not sure. I don't hear much going public of anglers getting in trouble this way. So it may not be as prevalent as some have made it out to be to me. 2) I have a client that is very famous and he's on TV a LOT. Dr Phil and many other news type shows studying body language, etc in criminal cases or high profile media things or whatever. He's nice guy and his wife is an absolute dear, but I can't hardly talk to the guy in person, I feel like he's always analyzing me. LOL!

That would cause me a lot of "anxiety" worrying about locks. I never cared for boat tournaments and rarely did them and actually sold my boat. Fell in love with kayak tournaments and that anxiety even kicks in for those. For example we had our season opener this past weekend and I'll do one of two things every time. We can launch lakewide and lines out at 2:30 but there's always a place we have to be and sign in by 3:30 or we get DQ'd and/or lose AOY points. It's not like I fish for a living so I have no idea why this gets me so anxious - but I'll either fish a ramp I don't necessarily care for so I can fish all the way up to 2:30 and make it to "weigh-in" by 3:30. OR, I'll fish where I want way out and pack it in WAY too early to insure I make it by 3:30. This past weekend's tourney was on a lake that is in at least 5 counties. I live in one of those five and feel good about 4 ramps within 10 miles of my driveway. Weigh-in was in another county and I WAY overestimated traffic, distance, unfamiliar location, etc of the meeting spot. I caught all of my scoreable bass in my last 30 minutes of fishing but packed it in early to get there on time. I got there at 2:06. I could've fished another hour probably and culled more. The actual winner of the tournament left his original ramp and showed up at mine about an hour before I left and stayed and hour after I left and won it on that exact spot. Obviously if I want to win one of these things I'll have to get that anxiety under control and quit being a pansy about it.

I've noticed some of the higher echelon bass anglers of my generation (I'm 53 BTW) are retiring earlier than the generation before them. I'm not sure my generation will have any Rick Clunns. You take Roland Martin, Shaw Grigsby, Tommy Biffle, etc to name a few that retired in their mid to late 60s. KVD and Skeet both retired at 55 or 56 and Mike Iaconelli is my age at 53 and I can see him hanging it up or maybe kayak bass for fun in the near future. I also wonder how much longer Swindle will do it. Hackney is I think the same age as me and I can see him fishing NFPL if nothing else for a while. I was born in 1971 so I consider that 1967-1973 birth year kinda "my generation."

People, my wife and kids included, are reluctant to go outdoors with me during snake season. They call me a snake magnet and I have been bit 6 times in my life and 2 were venomous. I fished this past Friday and saw at least 20 snakes swimming and four fall from trees near the shoreline. In 2022 we hiked the Lost Dutchman/Superstitious Mtn in AZ, I got bit by a rattle snake and fell off a cliff. Fast forward to June of the same year and I was fishing a bass tournament and I hooked a good bass and it was coming right toward me. I couldn't keep up and reel fast enough. When I got it to the boat I reached down and lipped him and pulled him out of the water and it had a snake wrapped around him. It was a good 3 1/2' long but just a common water snake but it struck and bit me on the inside of my left elbow. I guess it was swimming to me to get away from the snake, LOL! So I've never seen a bass blow up on a snake but I've seen the opposite where the snake tries to eat the fish.

I agree everyone has their own path and what works for them and what doesn't, but for me, I must be step for step in line with Koz because I agree 100% with everything he mentioned. As a matter of fact when I was reading his post I was basically reliving the exact scenarios that lead me to the same conclusion as him. As far as get a boat, I can see where some would say might as well get a boat. Me and my best friend went halvsies and boat an OLD bass boat when we were 16. Fished it until we graduated college and at 21 I started buying new bass boats. I'm 53 now and bought my last one in 2019 and it hasn't been wet since I bought my first kayak in Aug 2019. I LOVE fishing little tournaments but I do NOT like the local boat tournament scene at all. Plus I'm terrified of speed on the water. My 21' boat has a 250 on it and I'm afraid to go over 37 mph. I'll ride my Harley 85 mph down the interstate in traffic but terrified in the boat.

If we get caught without a vest we get DQ'd. If we take a pic of the fish with no vest, the fish doesn't count and we get DQ'd. Can't always see your vest when camera is pointed at the fish on a Ketch board, but we've had some geniuses lay their vest in the kayak and take a pic of their fish with the vest in the background. If we're putting on or taking off rain gear and have to remove the vest, we have to go to the bank. If someone sees you not doing that you get DQ'd. I have an NRS I wear during cooler months and an auto inflate during warmer months. Mine will either auto inflate, pull a cord and inflate or a mouth tube to manually inflate. Our season opener is in March each year and I replace my cartridge each year before the first tournament. My gym has an indoor pool and before I change out the cartridge I jump in and test the old one. May or may not help but gives me the warm and fuzzies. I will periodically jump in and go limp with my NRS just to see how it orientates me. I don't worry as much about flipping, etc and being conscious as long as I have my vest on, which it's always on even when not in a tournament - it's if you black out, hit your head or go unconscious for whatever reason. You may float face down and drown, but at least you have a 50/50 chance with a vest on. One other thing a lot of people don't think about is the rule of 120. If the water temp and air temp combined aren't at least 120*, it can be dangerous. If I'm in a kayak and it doesn't hit 120, I wear a wetsuit. The only issue is if you have to pee, you pretty much have to go ashore. If push come to shove I'd rather sit in a puddle of urine than die though.

I carry 8 rods and each rod goes in the same holder each time.

I don't use the anchor pole unless I'm in a tournament. So much wind and current here you can't set up on a spot and fish while having to stay on your pedals, etc to hold position. I also leave one crate in the Jeep and only carry 4 rods if I'm fun fishing. Old Hickory has a dam and a steam plant with generators so even if there's no wind there's always a strong pull. One thing I have not done is add a motor. One of the things I like about kayak fishing is the exercise. I probably put 130-150 miles per week on a bicycle and try to do 2 centuries per year (100 miles in one day) so no longer than a tournament is I could go full bore all day and that's only really needed to get to the first spot if it's far and back to the ramp. So I've never seen a need for a motor. If I ever got to the point of a motor on my kayak, I'd probably sell it and go back to my 21' bass boat.

Unfortunately the two main lakes we fish around here aren't stellar by any means. I don't see a lot of bait chasing and seeing bedded fish in this chocolate milk is almost impossible. Old Hickory is a big Cumberland River lake that is pretty well known but the Elites never come here anymore. I think the last time the Elites came here was 2008. It was supposed to be in Memphis in the MS River and there was a flood and they moved it to Old Hickory. If I remember correctly like 40#/4 day weight won it. A 2# bass here is a treasure, LOL! As far as gadgets I have a 9" and 7" Garmin in front of my pedals on a Hobie crossbar. To be honest the graphs are pretty much out of the way and the least of my concerns. The wires go into the rod tubes and thru the hull to my Lithium in the hatch under the seat. I have the full size Hobie crate and a Hobie crate jr behind the seat with my Plano boxes and all my tackle fit in those. Each crate has 4 built in rod holders so all my rods are in those as well. On the back I have a Yakgadget anchor pole and the line comes up to the front to a Sidewinder to pull it up and down. I have that Hobie tray on the right H-rail that has my scissors, pliers, a can of reel magic and those scented magic markers. It hangs on the outside of the boat. I have a mount for my Ketch board on the right and the stock rod holder in the hull holds my net and I have a donkey leash connected to the left side. That's about it other than a cup holder.

I take less rods if I pleasure fish and when I say this I'm not poo pooing on tournaments because I love doing them and part of a great little trail, but when lines in is at 6:30AM and lines out is 2:30PM, it sounds like a long time but if you don't get lucky and just launch on some fish, you spend quite a while looking. I like having different rods ready with different baits. Staring at a screen all day has done no favors for the eyesight so retying as little as possible helps. One thing I'm trying to do this year I've been too reluctant (lazy) to do is change ramps. In prior years I've been reluctant that if I get to a ramp and the water is dead, I wouldn't pack up and move to a different ramp. I'd just slog around catching nothing. Partly because I had so much crap I didn't want to load up just to go somewhere else and unload again. I'm up at 2:30 every morning and hit the gym and at the office by 4ish every day. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping and that happened the other night so I went to the garage and took a lot off the boat and rearranged, we'll see how this goes. I may launch the boat every so often to graph and look for fish before a tournament but I doubt I'll go back to a boat. I'm so leery about a breakdown and scared of speed on the water my range isn't much different between a boat and a kayak.

I sold my bass boat to a client in 2019 because for 1) I'm scared of speed on the water and a big boat and engine was silly of me and 2) I got tired of all the hassle, etc of getting the boat to the water and everything that goes with. That same year I got REALLY involved in Kayak bass tournaments and love doing it. I even sponsor part of KBF. Wound up repossessing that boat about 2 mos ago so now I have a boat again that I'll probably resell because I have no desire to boat fish anymore. I just took time out of tax season to fish the season opener this past weekend. Tax season is very taxing (no pun intended) and it was a comedy of errors. First off I realized the night before that my license expired on Friday night so I had to reup. I'm exhausted from tax season and over slept. Had unplugged lithiums over winter and plugged them in the night before and forgot to flip the switch to charge. Luckily never went below 12.9V all weekend. Here's where I have to make changes - granted I've really gotten into these tournaments and enjoy it but I've decked this Hobie out to the point that it's starting to become a hassle like a boat. Two big graphs, micro anchor, 8 rods, lots of tackle, trailer because it's too big to lift anymore and just gadgets everywhere. I LOVE kayak fishing and it suits my style of fishing plus I could live in a coccoon and love being in a "pod" with everything at arms length. What I DO NOT like is clutter and hassle and that's what I've created. I'll probably have to fish this next tournament the same and when tax season is over I'm going to step back and severely downgrade and remove a bunch of stuff. Just don't know what yet because I pretty much use everything on it.

I came in here last week and searched this topic and found this thread before making a decision this past Saturday. I went to my local shop and brought my fully loaded Hobie PA and played with both. I had a Wilderness cart that I bought 4-5 years ago when I had a Wilderness kayak. Worked great, no problems. With the Hobie it gave me heartburn. Granted I load mine down tournament fishing and I don't want to unload everything but it would never settle right on the bunks and wanted to roll out from under as I let the kayak down. The steeper the ramp the more trouble it gave me. I also didn't get along with the Hobie cart. I know Hobie says a scupper cart is ok for theirs but I load mine down and I just can't see how that's good to put all that pressure in two small spots. Especially two spots that are difficult to repair. It was a hard choice between the Bunkster and Bar Cart. Ultimately for how much stuff I carry and I get a 20% discount at our shop I went with the Bar Cart to spread that weight a bit instead of having four points taking the brunt. If I didn't get a discount I may have leaned toward the Bunkster, I'm all about saving a dollar. In addition the Bar Cart has the ability to turn both runners 90* so if I'm at a rough ramp and having trouble I can just put it on the cart flat and strap it down.

I don't have a problem with MLF making changes to format, 5 or everyone counts, etc. The business, contract law and business ethics I'm required to take each year for my license has a small qualm. The original 80 who went out on a limb for WHATEVER reason were told they had a place AND if they wanted to get out within the first 3 years they had to buy their way out. Wasn't it like $50k? I thought the original 80 had some small percentage of ownership. Of course that didn't help Marty Stone. On the flip side, we hardly get year 3 in our memory as history and they cut 35 of them. The other thing is the first year guys in 2024, like Matt Stefan, those guys are screwed barring a phenomenal year. I wonder if Boyd Duckett will cut himself? Doesn't he finish like 85th out of 80 each round?

I took a treble to the hand from a brand new, fresh jerkbait myself the other day. Boat in the garage and reached into the rod locker for something and buried it past the barb. Home alone and couldn't reach the pliers. Had to reach in with other hand and release the reel, pull line to my pliers, cut off the barb and pull'er out. At 51 and fishing all my life I don't remember ever getting hooked until last summer I posted my little comedy of errors everyone got a kick out of and then a week ago. I guess I'm getting old and careless.