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.

True. I rode Harleys from 1999 until I sold my last one April '21. Cars hit each other all the time and it hurts worse if you're on a bike. I took the beginner rider's course when I got my first bike, and to be honest I only took it for the discount on my insurance. We rode supplied 500cc thumpers and I learned SO much from that course. At the time they also had an intermediate and advanced course. I don't think they offer the intermediate anymore but I learned so much in the beginner I took all three. We were on our own bikes for intermediate and advanced and I rode a big bagger. One thing they taught us was a lot of bikers will say, " I had no choice but to lay her down," and they taught us that wasn't necessarily true. They made us get up to 70mph and lock'em up without going down. You had to do it over and over until you got it. The most important thing was awareness. I got to the point I could be in traffic and pick out the idiot and just know to stay away from them. It carried over into driving a vehicle and on the water. I saw the guy coming in the boat and I knew it wasn't going to be good. I tried to position myself and get away to a certain extent but when they veer toward you, you don't have much of a chance. My son often says his superpower is hindsight, but he realized a few minutes later it didn't help much. LOL! In hindsight I guess I just never dreamed he would come at me like he did. In the future I won't take that for granted. However, I'll drop my scenario from this thread. I kinda feel like I took away from the young lady who lost her life which I feel deep sorrow for her and her family.

Actually yes. The father/son reported him but 5 more witnessed it. He launched at a ramp fairly far away with a traditional boat launch shotgun start. Since I was fishing an open lake kayak tournament I could launch at any ramp on the lake. So I launched at a small cove at the end. This little cove was one way in, one way out by water. So our tournament was on the water at 5AM, lines in at 6AM. I got on the water about 4:30 and only had less than a half a mile where I started under this bridge. I sat there watching the fish boil not being able to throw until 6AM. I submitted my first fish at 6:03 catching one my very first cast. It was so quick I was actually worried they'd think I started fishing early. By 6:33 I had a limit, although not an in the money limit. I have an orange flag with a 360* light, a headlamp, two graphs lit up and two forward facing beam lights on the bow. This guy didn't come thru though until about 9:30 in broad daylight. He for sure saw me because I saw him at a distance and it looked like he was gonna be close. I waved both hands in the air and he waved back and I visually saw him veer closer to me at the last minute. It was 100% intentional. The police came to the ramp I launched at and he was still in the cove. Small cove and the police literally called him to the bank. I followed. He shot himself in the foot because he immediately started raging that my "little kayak" tournament cost him money because I was in his spot and ruined his chances. In reality he cost me because all the hub bub cost me the chance to cull and my day was basically over around 11:30, I had no desire to keep fishing. He made arrangements for someone to pick up his boat and he left in cuffs. Initial court date 6/20/23. I thought they'd confiscate the boat but they didn't. I left early and stopped at Hardees to eat and the guy that picked up his boat was there.

I live about as close to Priest as I do Old Hickory (less than 10 miles) and have only been on Priest maybe 4 or 5 times. I hate that lake and most incidents are almost always on that lake. I broke down and fished a tournament there 4/15 and a guy in a bass boat went out of his way from the boat lane (300' wide) to buzz me because he was mad I got to a spot first. Apparently we were both in a tournament. He was full speed and went on my side of a bridge piling where I had about 25' to the rip rap bank and he had 300" on the other side. Full speed and slammed me against the rip rap. I lost two rods and a net but didn't fall out or flip. Luckily a father and son were crappie fishing close and got his boat number and called the police. Just PURE pettiness that could've killed me.

I almost had the same thing happen to me earlier this year. All my life TN's fishing license ran from 3/1 --> 2/28. So if you paid for a year on 2/27, sorry it was only good for one day. Starting last year they changed it to one year from the date of purchase. So apparently when I renewed last year it expired ONE day before my first tournament in 2023. They sent out a reminder a day or two before the tournament and I had switched over to the TWRA license on my phone deal and I happened to check and caught it. One thing I thought was cool is I renewed about 3 days before they expired and they applied it as if I renewed the day after they expired kinda giving me those extra few days for next year. Doesn't sound like much but I thought it was a nice touch. So if I got a license check on the water on 2/24 and they expired 3/1 when I pulled it up on my phone it showed my current license and also showed that I had already paid for the next year starting 3/2.

Anyone ever had one of these or decent experience with one? I drove 4 hours to buy one in 2021 and they had it listed on their website and I called before driving over and got there and it had sold 3 weeks prior and someone forgot to take it out of inventory. They fell all over themselves apologizing and gave me a HECKUVA deal on a Hobie PA so I took it. They had no idea when they'd get another Bluesky. Now they have them and that's still an itch I want to scratch. Just wondering if anyone had any experience with one or especially a Hobie and a Bluesky. I'd hate to let go of the Hobie and hate myself.

I had something very similar to that happen to me season opener of KBFTN tournament. In February we had some days hit 82*, fairly stable beginning of March. Tournament was 3/18 & 3/19 (Saturday & Sunday). I prefished on Thursday in 76* temps and found them shallow. On Friday it was off the water day but temps dropped to 67*. Saturday morning I launched at 21* with a high of 39*. On Sunday I launched at 18* with a high of 29*. I had a battery problem during this tournament and lost my electronics both days but according to my tracks I'd put in 6 miles each day before losing my electronics. I'm guessing I did 12 miles on Saturday and about 10 on Sunday. My fish here in mid TN just left. Maybe moved to another lake further south for all I know. In two days and approx 22 miles in the shallowest I could go to 45-50' deep I found one bait ball and it was tiny and 13' deep. In one spot I found fish 15-20' deep and drop shot and caught a huge catfish. I'm sure depending on where you are and a blue million other variables they'll do something else but that's what happened to me. Now if you went from 90-65* and it had been warm for a while they'll probably react much differently. So that starting temp less 25* is a big factor.

I'd suggest you keep your current kayak and pick up one of those dollys. You mentioned getting a Bronco and I don't know if your current vehicle has a hitch or not but these dollys aren't meant to tow on the road and FAR from road legal anyway you could actually just jerry rig this thing to any vehicle because it's only meant to pull in the parking lot, up that bad hill, etc. Forgive me I don't remember which one of Greg Blanchards videos it is but he carries his kayak in a truck and his yak has Boonedox landing gear but some ramps/parking lots are STEEP and he has a dolly. Put the dolly in the water and yak floats off. Getting out of the water the yak floats over dolly and pull the rope and pull dolly and yak out of the water. He has one video where the ramp was super steep and the dolly either went on his hitch or he hooked it to the bumper and he backed it into the water with his truck and pulled it out when he left. The other perk to these dollys is you can actually stand erect and pull your kayak. I have a Hobie PA for example with the Hobie scupper cart. I've rarely used it because even though Hobie says their scuppers are reinforced I've seen them crack. Check Alex Rudds YT for example. I can't stand erect and pull it or the back end will scrape. Pulling up a hill all hunched over is even worse. With these dollys you can stand normal. I don't know how much they cost but if they're $300 I'd rather buy one if I liked my current kayak than sell mine for a money loss, buy another and have to change all my crap from one kayak to another.

I learned the same lesson you did. I'm not crazy about a lug wrench that comes with a vehicle or the jack. I have a 3 ton floor jack tucked away and out of the way in my Jeep and I have air wrenches with all the SAE and Metric sizes but I went and bought two separate extra sockets to match my Jeep wheel and trailer wheel and a breaker bar socket wrench with a swivel head all in 1/2" to match my air wrench set. I stopped to help a guy change a tire once, don't know why I guess he just looked like he was struggling. He was a decent size guy and was standing and hopping on his lug wrench that came with the car to break the lugs free. It was a foreign car and I had a VW when I was 16 that had left handed threads. I try one lug he hadn't just overtightened and it came loose. He was embarrassed and when we got to the last two he'd been cranking on they wouldn't budge and his lug wrench just cracked and split. This was before I started carrying my goodies and the lug wrench from my truck didn't fit his.

I'm 51 and been a bass boat owner since I was 16, recently sold my boat because I've become so engulfed in kayak fishing. I do put about 150 mi/week on a bicycle and do two centuries a year though, so pedaling a kayak with no hills to climb seems like a field day. ORIGINALLY I got a kayak to get away from what I perceived as headaches with my boat. As time has went by I think I've actually made my kayak more labor intensive than my boat was, but I really enjoy the kayak and don't think about it as much. I wanted a kayak I could throw in the bed, carry to the office and fish places on the way home. I wasn't pulling a 21' bass boat thru rush hour morning and evening. Of course as things progressed I got very involved in kayak tournaments and added more and more to the kayak. I actually carry more rods and about 5X the tackle I ever carried on my boat. So I defeated my original purpose of getting small and simple and a trailer became just about mandatory. So now if I'm honest with myself I've probably made kayaking more work getting in and out of the water than the boat was. However, most of my bane with the boat was getting in and out of the garage. So, more work getting in and out of the water but in and out of the garage is cake. Like a lot of my endeavors I have one thing in mind and it goes in a different direction. LOL!

We had a tiny break between 2 and 3 and about 3 it started misting. I kept looking at the radar and all was clear so I kept going and the mist got harder and harder until it hit downpour at 5ish. I did cull two in the April month long tournament. They were biting and I was catching, but only two culled. We got stop number 2 this weekend on Priest. I live 7 miles from the nearest ramp on Old Hickory and 8 miles from nearest on Priest and have rarely fished there. I suck on Priest and in tax season so really can't pre-fish it. Probably be a donor.