Fairtax4me

I’ve had a tough time on the kayak the first few trips. Caugh only a few fish and all dinks. Today finally got on a good pattern and decent numbers for a local lake that’s normally pretty tough. 4 hours on the water and caught 9 and missed at least that many more to either shake-offs or short bites. Caught a couple dink’s as well but most were 1.5 range. Biggest was maybe 2lbs. Had one shake off that was 3.5ish. Decent fishing, but there was a nasty scum layer on that lake that just coated my poor kayak. Most of it came off but I’m gonna have to do some serious scrubbing to get the rest. My paddle looked like I stuck it in a grease trap. Just gross!

I got out on the same lake twice this week looking for bass and found that they are all up searching for mates, or sitting on beds. The hard part about bed fishing is finding the beds when you only have max 3ft visibility in stained water. I’ve caught a few small males dragging Texas rigged plastics around and fishing near brush or fallen trees, but the bigger females so far are not in the eating mood. Gonna have to give this lake a pass for another week or so. I’m planning to fish some crystal clear mountain water this weekend.

I’m diggin it so far! I looked at the SS as well and really like that one, but just wasn’t quite ready to pull the trigger on that kind of $$. Honestly for what $6-700 less?... This is nearly as much boat, and has a lot of features that most other boats (use the term loosely) in this price range don’t have. Plus the SS is a fair amount heavier. And the extra length makes it that much more awkward to lift it. The RS is light-weight enough that I can get it off and back on the roof of the Subaru without struggle. It’s not “light” but it’s doable, and that’s what I was looking for.

My paddle also floats. (Tested and verified) And if I drop it, I have other things that I can sorta paddle with to go get it (like hands), or Keep a crankbait in the kayak and if your paddle floats away you can always use a crankbait to drag yourself back over to it. I’ve found that’s actually a very productive way to fish on the move and cover lots of water.

Thanks guys! I spent a LONG time looking at different kayaks before deciding on this one. Really what it came down to was the seat. By far the most comfortable seat I’ve sat in for a kayak in this price range. And you can adjust it a couple ways to suit your liking. It’s kind of in between a basic seat and a fancy seat, but it’s way comfortable and very breathable. Hoping for no sweaty back this summer when paddling around. Usually when I’m fishing I’m standing up. It’s just like getting up off the couch. Half the time I just stand and paddle around like I’m on a SUPboard. Like me I said I looked for a really long time and kept going back and forth between this and a less expensive kayak. It came down to that I wanted durability, and I wanted to be able to stand up in it. I pretty sure I could drag this thing for miles and not have to worry about any holes. The thing is tough as a brick. I looked at several cheaper kayaks and always felt like if I hit a rock just right they would crack or bust a hole through the hull. I don’t think there’s any way that would happen with this one unless I drop it off a cliff or something. A more expensive kayak I would feel bad about dragging over rocks in a river or gravel or a concrete boat ramp. This one I don’t have to feel too bad about possibly giving it some battle scars, and even then I don’t think it would ever hurt it bad enough to make it not float.

What charger are you using and is it programmable so you can set the proper charge and float voltages for your specific batteries? Deep cycle and starting batteries have a different lead plate structure inside which gives them different discharge different capacaity characteristics, and as such they require different charging methods in order to be properly charged and maintained. If using the same charger you need to make sure the charge settings for each bank can be set for that specific type of battery, and that it is delivering the proper voltage and amperage as recommended by the battery manufacturer during each phase of the charge cycle. Different charge profiles are required for deep cycle vs starting, as well as for FLA, AGM, Gel type, or “dry” type cell batteries. Using a flooded profile on an AGM or Gel battery will overcharge it and create air pockets in the electrolyte which will damage the battery and it will not recover. A brand new AGM battery can be useless in just one charge cycle. Conversely, if charging a flooded battery with an AGM profile, the FLA battery will be chronically undercharged, which will cause sulfation of the plates. This will lead to a slow death over the course of a few months to maybe a year, depending on the battery size and charge setting. If your charger is not programmable, buy one that is. It will pay for itself the next time you Don’t have to replace dead batteries because of improper charging.

Bought a new Bonafide RS a few weeks ago. I stuck it on the pond near my house for a trial paddle run and shake-down. Figured a few things out and then set to getting some gear to get everything set up to handle some sub-50 acre lakes that are nearby enough that I can spend a few hours fishing before or after work and kill all day on easily on a weekend. (or one of those days when I’m “sick” ) Got some of the basics together, paddle holder, net, measuring board, scale, milk crate (got hundreds of them at work), and while perusing amazon for random other things I came across a Lowrance hook 4” sonar for $99, plus a coupon for $10 off. Basic basic unit with a bullet transducer that mounted perfectly in the factory made mounting holes on the bottom of the Bonafide. Had no plans of going for sonar at this point but decided for that price it really couldn’t be beat! And the little thing is awesome! Anyway, got it out for the “maiden voyage” late last week. I hit the lake where I caught those two big girls a few weeks ago and knew they had moved out of the deep end of the lake but wasn’t sure where exactly. It was a perfectly bluebird, post front day with a light 4-5mph breeze... from the east. A handful of other people out on kayaks and Jon boats fishing near the deep water. I started out just cruising a bit and knew where I wanted to go but didn’t want to just paddle straight there without trying to see what (if anything) other people were catching first, and playing with some of the few settings on the sonar unit. Talked to a few other kayakers and their answer was, nothing doing, at all. They had been on the lake for three hours without a single bite. This lake is known for completely shutting off, and I had a feeling it would be that off anyway because of the weather, and the few days prior. Still with some hope I paddled up lake to where it narrows down and guess what, there’s the bass marks on the sonar! Two schools of them maybe 15-20 fish per school 10 feet down in 15FOW. But I already know if they’re suspending it’s almost impossible to get them to eat. It’s like they just wanna hang out and chat a while. (And Ignore that stupid yellow baitfish that just swam right through the middle of our club meeting) But I at least know where they are now, and I set to work with a few different lures before settling on chucking a jerkbait right up as close to timber cover as I could get it without getting stuck. Annnnnnnd caught my first bass out of the kayak! A hungry dink that found out how tasty a rapala shadow-rap is! That was the only bass. I did also catch a couple bluegill on the same jerkbait. Leaving at dark I talked to a few of the Jon boat anglers in the parking lot and they also caught one dink bass in several hours on the water. I’ll call the first trip a success! The kayak floats well, tracks well when under way, and it’s more than stable enough for me to stand on, and I have a hard time standing on dry land at times! The sonar unit showed me some great easily identifiable marks of bass and crappie. And I caught some fish! The second trip was yesterday and I got half rained on after catching a couple small bass again on a squarebill. I missed a few fish that blew up on soft plastics as soon as they hit the water. Had the be thrown where they would literally hit the bank or brush under the heaviest brush/cover around underwater logs. Had several blow ups, none of them swam away with a lure. But I know where the bass are now, and it’s just a matter of getting there when they’re in the mood to eat so I can figure out what their feeding schedule is now. Then I can track down and hammer on them bigguns!

Congrats on the new PB!! A nice hawg for sure!

Great! Thanks! I definitly don’t want something cumbersome that would limit movement or get tangled in other gear or around me. Just interested to know if other people use them while using the rod or only when the rods are in holders. I been watching a lot of kayak videos trying to get ideas for rigging and pretty much nobody ever even mentions a rod leash. To me it just makes sense to have something to keep them attached to the boat in case it flips or one gets snagged somehow. I’ve fished from canoes plenty, and from a few non-fishing style kayaks, and haven’t ever lost a rod but I’ve had enough close calls. I usually only take my cheaper combos if I’m fishing from a canoe, but with the kayak I’d like to be able to take my nicer shimano reels and not worry about dropping a $300-400 rod combo in the lake. Or worse, have the yak flip and lose three or four rods. My scale floats, my lip grip floats, my net floats, my fish stik measuring board floats. Just need fishing reels that float and I’ll never have to worry about sinking! All the rod floats that I’ve seen are HUGE. Like big enough for salt water rods. Big enough to get in the way of the line during casting. And even though they are light weight, I still think it would feel odd to have the big lump of foam stuck to say a medium rod while I’m trying to twitch a jerkbait or something. For a big heavy flippin rod that might make a bit more sense. Maybe some are smaller and I just haven’t seen them? I plan to try experimenting with a few sections of small foam pipe insulation just to see how well it does. Maybe something that will keep a rod floating just long enough will be the ticket.

Been looking at these since I just bought my fish fishing kayak. Question for You guys that use rod tethers, when you are using the rod is it tethered? And where are you attaching the tether? To your PFD, or something else? I really feel like the foam rod floats are too bulky and will either get in my way or interfere with casting. But I’m also worried that a tether on the rod will limit my options for casting as well. Rods that are in the holders I can totally understand having a tether on as a precaution, and I plan to do that.

You gotta teach your co-angler how to take pics for you! Good catches, and congrats on the new PB!

Three come to mind, but the most recent was week before last. Fishing a local lake from the bank I had been catching some decent bass in a spot near shallow water where some tiny bluegill were schooled up and hiding in some grass patches. This day it was maybe 55° out, mostly sunny and calm all day, and because I’ve started paying attention to it, it was the day of the new moon. Casting a small swim bait on a VMC 4/0 jig head and reeling SLOW I was getting bit coming past grass patches. Caught a couple 2-3lbers doing that. Made a few casts for deeper water and then saw bait fish scattering again up near the grass. I reeled in quick and tossed over there. I thought I had reeled into the grass clump... I simply lifted my rod to try to pull the lure free... And then the grass clump started reeling back! Two SLOW head shakes and then it started pulling my rod back down as it moved out toward deep water. This is on a medium heavy rod sporting 40lb P-line braid, and the drag on my shimano curado is Locked down. So when my rod is BENT, and the braid is creaking, and the drag starts to slip I knew what I had on, and it was far beyond new PB territory! She swam out at what I can only describe as a “leisurely stroll” for a cold gigantic bass, about 5-6 feet from the grass and came to the surface. I can still see her outline under the surface in the slightly stained water. The first thing that breaks the surface is my lure, skin hooked right in the very edge of her upper jaw. Then the top half of her jaw, and back to around the front of the dorsal fin come out of the water. She said NO with one more SLOW head shake. It was so slow it didn’t even splash! My lure pops free, and she continues on her way back to the depths. She cruised off just a few inches under the surface like nothing had happened. She didn’t fight, and didn’t “run”. She was a cold, lethargic, monster bass in 45° water, and I don’t think she even knew or cared that she was hooked. She just knew the bluegill she tried to eat was still stuck on her lip instead of in her gut, and something about that bluegill was sorta kinda holding her back from swimming off to her cozy home out in the deep. That ones gonna leave a mark. She was every bit of 10lbs, or even a little more. Biggest bass I’ve ever had on a hook, and she was gone in less than 10 seconds.

Some days it goes your way!

Knowing today would be an “off” day, I went back to the spot for about an hour at sunset to see what I might convince to bite. Yesterday it was cloudy windy, almost 70°. Today, bluebird, 55, and pressure going back up. Context: Last Friday I tied on a brand new zman weedless shroom jig and a brand new hula stick worm and had a bite on the first cast with it. Set the hook and the brand new worm got yanked off the hook. How that happens with an elaztech bait!?!? Fast forward a week through many small bass, a 5lber and a handful of 2 and 3lbers on the subsequent hula stick worm, and same jig head. Today my hula stick worm theif bit again, and for a short time had Two hula worms in his mouth! The one I lost, and the one I put on a week ago to replace the one I lost! A little tug with the forceps and I got my other worm back, and it was in surprisingly good shape! I guess that’s a win for the day! Retrieved my lost worm and saved the little dude in the process!

I’m gonna count this as Birthday Citation Bass number 2. It was less than 24 hours later so it’s close enough. Gutzilla here ate the same black trick worm. She weighed 6.69 (weighed twice just to be sure) which is .05 lbs shy of my PB. She was 22-1/4” long. OH the fatness!! Two others I got today as well. One on the ned rig, and the other on the trick worm right at dusk.

Got a couple birthday bass after work today! Hit a local pond for a bit to see if the little fish there were doing anything and they were! I whooped on about a dozen 8” bass in 45 minutes and found a small school of them sitting shallow in a sunny corner. They were happy to munch on the weightless dinker worm I was skipping over their heads! Pulled 7 out of there on consecutive casts. Then I decided if the bitty bass were chomping like this maybe the big girls would be on my honey hole spot at the bigger lake down the road. They were! But they weren’t suspending, and if it was moving they couldn’t care less about it. Slow and wiggly on the bottom was the key. I launched a dink with a hook set with the ned rig and then had a nice 2-3lb on that jumped twice and shook loose underwater after the second jump. I put that down and picked up the medium heavy jig rod and tied on a 4/0 shaky head with a black trick worm. That did the trick! A couple 2lbs followed by a 3.9 and a 5.8 about ten minutes later right at dusk! She kissed the 22” mark! B-Day citation! If you gotta work and can’t party on your bday, catching some big ole bass certainly makes up for it!

Yesterday morning my buddy was off work and he wanted in on some of that juice. So I met him at the lake to fish for a couple hours before I had to go to work. I might have jinxed him by catching a 6.2 on the 3rd or 4th cast. 21” and fat like miss piggy! I got a few bites after that and had another decent one shake the hook long before I actually saw the fish so dunno how big it was, felt like 3-4lbs. Then I had to leave (should have called in), my buddy kept fishing for another few hours. He caught a few dink’s and lost a good one at the boat. Just to rub it in a little more I went back after work and fished the bank until dark. 5 pounds on the nose. Uncle Ned strikes again!

Off work at 5 and in the car to ride to my local muddy honey hole to hit my spot. Uncle Ned still putting in the work catching bass! After a few days of cloudy and rain we finally got a sunny day today, albeit slightly breezy and not exactly warm. Made a few casts to see if they were deep or up shallow and found them pretty much where I left them last time. Maybe a bit deeper, but still very much within reach from the bank. First up was a 3.7lb chunker! A few casts later caught a nice maybe pound and a half. Kept working that spot and maybe 20 minutes later hooked a GIANT!!! Major Adrenaline rush because this fish hit and just started peeling drag when I set the hook! Finally got to reel some line in and it starts peeling again! Holy ice cream Batman this gotta be a new pb... Nope, just a fat 2.5 lber I somehow managed to hook in the tail! Smack bottom center in the meat just before the fin. The only time a 2.5lb bass is a disappointment... Clear skies, cold tonight (mid 20s), but warm and sunny the next two days! Hopefully the juice will still be on!

Hunt for Red October Because I’m looking for a big, stealth, Submarine of a bass!

Thanks Matt! I would LOVE to fish that section below the dam where the railroad bridge is. But as far as I can tell the ramp at Red and Dots is closed indefinitely or is totally private now. I really checked into that one earlier this year and the ramp was blocked off, no store there anymore, and nobody was around to ask when I made the trip to look around. I couldn’t tell if there were any other public access points even just to launch a kayak, or park next to the road somewhere to bank fish that section. Still on my to-do list, but it’s hard to find a good day to drive down and poke around the area. Maye you can answer this question for me... Seems like all summer long and into late fall whenever I fish the deep section of monacan (boat ramp to the dam basically, but they’re all over the entire stretch) these fish are scattered all over that come up and pop their heads/backs out of the water then dive back under. Kinda like a big trout will do eating bugs off the surface. I haven’t ever been close enough to one to really tell what they are, but they appear slightly brown, and some of them appear to be quite large, maybe 3-5lbs, maybe larger? But they’re like ghosts, even with sidescan sonar, they flat out disappear if you get within casting distance of them. Ive literally watched them come up 40-50 yards from the boat, trolled over to the spot, marked exactly Zero of anything on sonar on the way there, and then turned around to see one surface where I just left from. Do you have any ideas what these mystery fish are?

Yesterday before work I hit the local mud hole again for about an hour from the bank. Found a sweet spot with crappie piled up in the shallows and bass sitting out a bit deeper. Two dinks and this nice one that went just shy of 4lbs! I spooked the crappie off the bank just beyond casting distance and saw a couple big swirls out in the middle of the school. I tried for about 10 minutes but just couldn’t quite get a lure out far enough to get any attention from the bass that were chasing them.

Yeah last week we had our coldest stretch yet this winter, with several days that never made it above freezing and multiple nights in the low teens to near single digit temps. Today it was 77°.

Last weekend Ned was the bait of choice! Local mud hole, starting to clear up some but still on the murky side. Maybe 4-5 foot visibility. 38° water. Couple fat 3.5 lbers liked the 4” TuRD Hula Stick worm. Had at least another 7-8 (kinda lost count) smaller bass eat it too. And the crappie liked to pick it up and swim away with it as well but none of them would just eat it so I could get a hook in them. My biggest of the day was this 4.5lb chunker, liked it so much she almost swallowed it before I got the hook set! Super fun fight on a medium spinning rod and 10lb braid!

Brand new Shimano SLX reel. First bass caught on it... 3.48 lb Brown! After fishing mud all last year it felt so alien to fish crystal clear blue water! We could see bottom at 15 feet! Took some time to find fish but when we did they were piled up and they were all fat and chewing up a 3” swimbait. Caught a nice 3.2lb large on it not long after the smallmouth. But I had to cut that bait off after I had three largemouth in the 2-3lb range shake it within feet of the boat. The VMC jig hook and Strike king rage swimmer didn’t let me down though! I watched this 4.1lb largemouth follow the lure up to the boat. I kept a steady reel speed until the lure was about 3 feet below the surface then killed it and let it coast in just below my rod tip and the fish veered off under the boat. I waited what felt like a small eternity (probably 2 seconds) and gave the rod the slightest twitch, and that got her to thump it! She pulled drag when I set the hook, but she didn’t get far!

Congrats man! Great looking Virginia Giant bass right there!