YakAngler Comes To Florida

Mark and Adam, the founders of Yakangler.com are in Florida this week to hang out and fish all over the state. What I think is really awesome about this is the fact that they came to fish in Florida for a week instead of going to Vegas for the ICAST convention....plus they're really cool guys who love fishing!

First stop on their whirlwind trip was to go fishing for trout and reds with me.

I met them at the always popular Sand Key. Of course I was a few minutes late. Being a Wednesday, there was no boat traffic. The conditions were perfect with a slight breeze and no rain in the forecast. The tide was on the latter stages of outgoing and would be low about 2 hours after our arrival. Florida native Chip Gibson and his son Brad drove all night from Georgia to go with us as well.

They secured a few Emotion Grand Slam kayaks from David Sims at Action Watersports which are pretty nice boats.
We paddled out to "The Corner", a grass flat on the edge of a 20 foot drop off. I broke my rod on the first cast by trying to unsnag a hang up. We caught a few trout and a few lizardfish and a needlefish.
We paddled over to an island and found a strong incoming tide along a shallow flat that dropped off into a channel. We caught a few more trout and spooked a few redfish. Was trying to get Adam a fish before heading back to the beach, but were unsuccessful in our attempts.
It was a really fun day out fishing and I'm glad that we had the opportunity to meet up, fish and enjoy some wings and beer at Mugs after....

"...A Three Hour Tour..."

I'm tired of looking at the weather and seeing "Winds 20-30 kts, small craft exercise caution", so I loaded up the kayak (much to Lacy's chagrin) on Saturday morning and drove out to Sand Key....bugger the weather. After spending a weeks worth of vacation and only getting to go fishing twice, both times minus the kayak, I'm over it.

It was a bit breezy when I arrived.

After unloading the kayak and rigging up, I tied on a black and purple bendback and a few Black Cat Brown Lures Devil Eyes to my spinning rig. As I'm putting the boat in the water, a fellow fisherman decides that this is the right time to get a clinic about all things kayak fishing and fly fishing. I'm standing in the surf, kayak in hand, being buffeted by waves and he wants to chat....

It wasn't too bad after I got past the surf line. Just 4 foot swells to navigate. The bow smashed through them fairly easily, but it reminded me of those old WWII Victory at Sea clips where the huge battleships were crashing through the rough seas, sending a deluge of spray over the deck...just on a much smaller scale.

I paddled out about 300 yards off the beach to a spot that had sparse grass about 3 feet deep and dropped off into a channel. This was the spot. I started using the flyrod, but the wind was making a mess of everything so, after about 5 casts with that, I decided to switch to the spinning gear. Third cast and it felt like I had a fish on. I reel it to within sight in the clear water and it's a snook! This is when it decides to start pulling back and after fighting for a few minutes, I brought to hand a 20 incher (sorry, was too wavy to attempt to get the camera out of the dry box and snap photos, no matter what Micheal Gracie says about it) I was getting hits on almost every cast and could see fish chasing my jig bouncing across the bottom. Caught a few 15 inch ladyfish too as well as another snook about the same size as the first.

Then, I felt a "thunk" on the end of the line, set the hook and started reeling. Dead weight. I thought I was snagged on a rock.... then the rod doubled over, line coming off the reel with that "zzzzzzzzz" sound that we all love. With 10 lb braided line and a 30 lb leader, I decided to play it safe. Drag was set perfectly, giving the fish the ability to pull some line, but having to work at it. After about 20 seconds of this with a potentially huge black drum...slack line....nothing....I reeled in a broken leader....frayed....whatever it was, it was pretty large to pull like that.

I'm trying to re-rig as my other spinning set up was safe and sound at home. I noticed that the seas had picked up quite a bit and whitecaps were slamming into me sideways. Trying to re-rig like this was like threading a needle while jogging. There was a spoil island about 300 yards away and the shoreline was about the same distance in the opposite direction. I decided to go for the shoreline. After 20 minutes of paddling into the wind with everything I had, it felt like the kayak was reacting slowly and that having to paddle 4 times on one side to turn was strange. Waves were pounding me every few seconds now but my kayak is super stable....right? I arrived at the beach winded and had to drag the boat down the shoreline to get to the car. It felt about 3 times heavier than normal. After dragging it up the beach to the car, I opened up the hatches to find that the entire boat was close to half full! No wonder it was so sluggish and heavy.

I'm lucky that I went in when I did. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have eventually foundered and sank with the tide turning a short time later, I would have been sucked out of the pass and into the Gulf....

Don't tell me that I need to invest in an EPERB now.....

Inane Randomness

As usual,when I find entertaining and thought provoking bits around the blogosphere, I like to share them.
A humorous post over at Lunker Hunt about How Do You Know If You Caught A Fish is very humorous and entertaining. How many of you make up rules like that? Do you count "Drive by's" and "Leans"? ( A Lean is when you cast to a sighted fish, and it swims toward your offering only to turn away before taking the bait. A Drive By is when you cast to a sighted fish and it just swims right by your offering - essentially, a Lean without the "leaning" action). In my neck of the woods, If you get the leader to the tip and the fish comes off, we call that a "quick release".....

I'm on vacation next week. Was supposed to be in the Keys but, unforeseen circumstances have intervened making it impossible for me to make it to Long Key. I'm pretty bummed because that is one of my favorite places in the world to camp and fish.....

....so, I've been looking at some maps of my area and some of the "spoil islands" in and around the inter coastal waterway. I'm going to reconnoiter several of them and I might camp out there for a night if it's suitable. I'll make it "My Private Island" as it were. Solitude, fishing, swimming and being out in this beautiful weather is anticipated indeed.

I've been into Mexican style beer lately. If It's Corona or Landshark, I like it...which is weird. I generally go for wheat ales or brews that you can use for hair gel. Must be the weather or time of year. My brother gave me a Bud Light Lime the other day. Tasted like watered down Kool Aid.....

Randy Kadish sent me a copy of his book "The FlyCaster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World" to read and review....looks interesting so far.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter is a holiday that I usually spend with family. This year will be no different. This year, dinner is at Nana's house at 4:00pm which leaves the entire day for what every kid loves... Easter Egg Hunting. But this year, the Easter Eggs I'll be looking for are copper in color, have a slight hue of blue on their tail, and a spot or two above the blue.

Yes, You're right....redfish.


The venue will be Fort Desoto, early in the morning. And this time, I'll have photos since my photographer friend will be going along.

According to Free Tide Tables there will be an all day incoming tide, which is good. We'll be launching kayaks around 8:30 and will be able to access the entire park. I'm furiously looking at the maps to figure out the best spots to hit.

Will they be in the oyster bars?

Will they be in the grass?

Will they be deep or shallow?

I'm loaded up on crab flies, Bang Bang Shrimp flies and Clousers of various color schemes.

Last year, there was no fishing. Maybe I can make up for it this year....

Happy Easter!

It's All In The Name

I've recently been thinking about naming the kayak. Ancient nautical lore dictates that an unnamed water craft, whether powered by oar, sail or motor is unlucky if not named and we all know I don't need any part of that. I've also heard that you're supposed to give a boat a girls name, but I think we're going to steer clear of that. They name hurricanes after women....

....so this is where you, the reader, comes in.

I'm looking for a name fitting for this boat....something humorous, something short. There's not a lot of stern to adorn with a name.

Here are the factors to consider -

It's lime green

I'm a fat bald guy

I dig the outdoors and fly fishing/fly tying

I don't wear your typical Orvis gear/pastel sun shirt and pleated Dockers. I'm more of a skull with flames shooting out the eye sockets long sleeve or Miami Ink shirt.

So here's the deal....either leave a comment or follow me on Twitter and tweet this "I'm going to name @ABadbackcast 's kayak __________" We'll vote on the winner weekdays on Twitter. Final day of voting with be 4/9/2010

One winner will get a nice Bill Jackson's fly box full of hand tied by yours truly flies and some other miscellaneous swag....

Maiden Voyage

Yesterday was the maiden voyage with the new yak. What one needs to realize is the difficulty of getting a 12 foot 60 lb boat out of my small apartment, down the stairs, out the the parking lot, and loaded onto the car. Now you might say, "60 lbs? I can haul that around with one hand", which is what I thought but, up and down the stairs is the hardest part...and the way my body feels today, I should make a workout video like "If you've got a door...you've got a gym", but instead "If you've got a kayak, you've got a gym." Even with the WheelEez, it was tough. Then getting the boat up on top of the car and onto the foam blocks and strapping it down. Of course, getting the boat off of the car and into the water takes a bit of gumption too....at least there are no stairs. You've really got to love doing this if it requires this much effort. I really think that Malibu should include Beth Phoenix or Randy Orton with the purchase of any kayak larger than the Mini-X.

There was no swanky send off...no champagne bottle across the stern...no cheering crowds (except for the one guy giving the "get the hell out of the way, I'm trying to launch my boat" cheer)

As you know, I like to travel light when I'm fishing. So, outside of the 60 lb kayak, I've found that I take even less than if I was wading. In the center console, I have a flybox, leader material, scissors, multitool, watertight dry box with camera,keys, cell phone and smokies, as well as a few jigs with jigheads, chopped shrimp for chum, and a first aid kit. Other items would include a PFD (Personal Floatation Device), spinning rig, and fly rod....ok ok...maybe I'm taking more stuff than normal, but it just seems like less....what I'm trying to say here is, you won't see me out there with a kayak that has fish finders, GPS, a poling platform, outriggers, bimini top and a trolling motor. If I wanted that, I'd just go get a flats boat.

Now to the fishing part.

After getting the kayak into the water, I found it to be super stable and handle well. The V hull really cuts through the chop and defies the wind for the most part.

One thing that I learned - rig up your fly rod before launching because it's a huge pain to try to do this in the boat.

After drifting across the flat with the wind blowing east to west, and the current running west to east while rigging up, I found myself on a deep grass flat (4-5 feet deep) with sand pot holes pock marking the area. I tied on a Crystal Shrimp and cast to a pot hole about 20 feet away. The fly hit the water and as I was stripping like crazy to get the slack out, WHAM! Fish on....a nice 12 inch spotted seatrout...first cast. Now, a 12 inch trout isn't gonna introduce you to your backing with an 8 weight, but it's big brother might. My personal best spotted seatrout was 46 inches...a true gator trout by any standards. Was expecting more trout as they usually hang out in large groups, but only got one more on the day. Again, inexplicably, I didn't take the camera out....

I was really amazed at how much water you can cover. In 5 hours, the distance traveled was about 100 times more than I could have done if I was wading for 8 hours.

After loading and unloading after paddling all day, I'm wiped out, as you might imagine....to add insult to injury, I'm the recipient of a really bad sunburn on my legs from the knees down. I was wearing board shorts, long sleeve skull shirt, fishing hat and buff. Looks like I need to invest in some Bullfrog 80 SPF.

Hot Products and Kayak D-Day

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you're sure to know that when I like a product, I blather about it incessantly until you're tired of hearing about it. I did this with the Teva's...the William Joseph Stripping Basket...and the always popular Kelty Kestrel bag. Brown Lures also comes to mind as a product that I like.

I'm sure it'll be the same with Malibu Kayaks

As you know, I'll be picking up my kayak tomorrow, (which is a Malibu Stealth 12) making 3/25/2010 essentially Kayak D-Day. Can you tell that I'm excited about it? Can ya? Really?

Now...lets get something straight here. I don't work for Malibu. I'm just passing along the info to you if you're interested in getting a kayak for fishing...which is what Malibu Kayaks are made for...fishing and diving.

I looked at a lot of other fishing kayaks, all of them cost less than the Stealth. There are some nice boats, but the Stealth 12 had all of the features that I was looking for, like a center/close at hand livewell storage bin, large gator hatch, lots of storage space to be able to take it kayak camping, rod holders and the whole bit. Being 33 inches wide offers quite a bit of stability without being so wide that you can't get anywhere in it.

As you know, I embrace simplicity when it comes to gear. The only things I need to add to it would be a crate and a few fly rod holders. There are extra things that you can attach to it...pretty much everything under the sun.... such as a sail, poling platform, outriggers, dashboard mounts for electronics and rudder foot pedals. I don't need any of that stuff, but it's nice to be able to have those options.

Having a kayak gives me the freedom to fish just about anywhere, and I can launch it from just about anywhere as well. Can also fit my camping gear into it....

Adventures In Kayak Shopping

I've been kayak shopping the last few weeks. Like fly fishing, there is a lot of research to do. I've spoken to many folks who fish from kayaks and got their opinions on size, type, prices ect....All I'm looking for is a sit on top style fishing kayak with plenty of storage that I can get to while on the water, a stable boat to be able to stand up in, yet not so wide that I have to wear myself out just paddling across the flat and something light enough that I can haul around myself....all without getting soaked, as it were, on price.

Being the geek that I am, I've narrowed it down to two boats to have the dishonor of bearing the Bad Backcast name, it just depends on the deal that I can score.

Both are Malibu Kayaks - and I like both...here is the rundown -

The Malibu Stealth 12 is my favorite so far. It offers the storage/livewell compartment right in front of the seat as well as 2 smaller storage areas that make up the casting deck. That's right....casting deck. I can stand up in it. It also has a lot of storage space in the front under the "gator hatch". No trying to cram your camping gear into an 8 inch hatch. Here are the specs:

Length: 12'4"
Weight: 60 lbs
Width:
(at beam) 33”
Max. load: 450 lbs.

YES! I'll take one in lime green please. We'll add on a few fly rod holders and be good to go.

The other boat is a Malibu X-Factor which has a lot of the same properties of the Stealth, but at 14.7 feet it seems a bit long for me. I still have to keep in mind that I'll have to store the thing at my apartment....and space is at a premium there as it is.

Now I just need to come up with a name for it - TURD seems appropriate.