kenmitch

Both solutions work in the end. When I purchased a pedal kayak I purchased it to be hands free. In my eyes the Hobie offerings were nice, but are less of a hands free solution. That doesn't make it any less desirable to you or anybody else that may be interested in their offerings. When you got the fish of a lifetime on the other end of your line every second counts....lol In the end it's a moot point as the Hobie he's looking at doesn't even have the 180 drive anyways. I just assumed it had the 180 drive in it.

I have the Slayer 10 which I purchased back in late 2017. I don't have any complaints, but with today's other offerings I'm not sure if I would go with it. Back then there really wasn't too many options available yet. I know I'll get some slack for saying this, but the lack of instant forward/reverse kills the Hobie as far as I'm concerned. Hook a nice feisty bass or other gamefish close to cover and you'll wish you didn't have to fumble around trying to switch back and forth from forward to reverse. It's bad enough just making rudder adjustments. The Topwater PDL looks like a nice yak for the money. I'd probably lean towards it over the Slayer 10 if I was shopping today. Good luck on your quest!

lol....Let's not forget the occasional loop knots that are created during the almost successful backlash removal. Nothing worse than picking out the backlash and creating a loop knot during the reeling back in process when we're in a hurry to cast back out.

What about us poor kayak anglers? Imagine the terror it would inflict seeing a out of control boat getting closer and closer as you try to pedal or paddle out of the way. Clearly the guy lacked common sense. No life jacket was his choice and his life to loose in the end. The lack of using the safety lanyard puts others at risk and shouldn't be excused. He should be fined and his boat should be impounded for the fishing season to teach him a lesson.

Crazy! He's lucky the other guys were around. The guys lucky he isn't catfish chum. Looks like the on plane remove the front seat while fishing solo trick got the best of him....Crazy to even try such a stunt.

Nice! Welcome to the kayak fishing club! I bought my fishing kayak having never even been in a kayak before. Site unseen, no seat time, no idea of if I'd even enjoy the experience at all. Went with the Slayer 10 Propel and couldn't be happier. It was pricey, but I was looking at boats before I went with the kayak so the price point was 1/10th of the boats I was looking at. Enjoy the yak!

Ball buster is my first impression after viewing them.

After viewing this thread I decided to weigh some lures just to see. From what I can tell there isn't really any set weight for Traps, Warpigs and Red Eyes as the weight fluctuates from one to another. I didn't break out the calibration slug to check my scale for 100% accuracy as I was more or less just looking for consistency. I did weigh each lure multiple times and reset it between weigh ins. 1/2 oz lures stock hooks and rings Traps were .5994-.6176 oz 3 examples Warpigs were .7418-.7580 oz 3 examples Red Eye were .5940-.6170 oz 2 examples I didn't examine the hooks and rings to see if they at least all looked like they were the same. 3/4 oz lures 2 stock and 1 modded Red Eye were .8640-.9076 oz 3 examples. The lightest 3/4 oz Red Eye was gifted to me by A-Jay and he had changed the rings and hooks. The other two had the stock hooks and rings on them still. The heaviest one clearly has slightly larger and beefier looking hooks on it, but they are the stock hooks. I didn't remove the hooks and rings and weigh them or just the actual lures by themselves.

I entered. Not sure if I'll do it everyday, but if I do win I'll gift you a spool so you can try it out. lol

Ouch. Sounds like you were damned if you do and damned if you don't under those conditions.

@A-Jay dang foul weather still keeping you down! Have you pulled all your hair out yet?

Have you looked at the small watertight ammo box's? They'd probably hold them all and keep the smell down to a minimum.

I had you pegged as a nipple twister from your choice of words. Looks like you did twist a few for a while at least.

I had the same experience with a bluegill that I threw back and the poor guy didn't make it. I'm not a bird guy and it happened pretty quickly so not sure which bird of prey it was in the end. I'm leaning towards a Osprey, but it was a really cool experience seeing it happen in real life vs on tv.

Bass are always catch and release. I kayak fish and camp out solo for the most part. I'm not really sure what would happen if I was lucky enough to hook into a world record spotted bass on a trip up north. My nets large enough to hold one and keep it alive for the short term, but I'm not sure how long it would survive in the end. I guess I'd have to make a whole lot of noise, wave my arms, and hope to attract the attention of a fellow boater. I won't stress over it as it'll most likely never happen, but have thought about what I'd do. I've had a brand new fillet knife under the back seat of my truck for a couple of years now. It's in mint condition still sealed in the original package. I came close to busting it out in in June of 2017 when I was up north on vacation. I caught a bunch of bluegill that I one by one threw back as they weren't worth the hassle to me. I wound up catching a couple pound channel cat and thought about it, but wound up giving it away to a fellow camper that wasn't having any luck. I really just wanted a photo of me holding the cat. I wound up catching another one later on in the day that was slightly bigger than the last one and did the same thing again as I just wanted another photo. At dusk we were both fishing the bank and I was down to my last 1/2 a worm and hooked into a much larger one which he helped me land, took a photo or two, and a 30 second or so video of me landing it. It was 6lb 3oz and I asked him if he wanted it and he decided that he already had enough so we let it go. The next day he regretted the decision as he said the other 2 were mighty tasty. There's nothing wrong with keeping and eating the fish you catch. Way back in the day when I was a we little lad my parents would take us camping and we'd catch and eat the fish. I'm not really much of a fish eater anymore so I just throw them back.

How do you kayak fish a pond that's the size of a swimming pool? Maybe the better question is why would you. Maybe somebody is practicing pond management? It seems logical to at least throw a few bass into a pond even if it's intended to be a bluegill fishery. Without any predators you'll just wind up with a whole bunch of tiny bluegills fighting over the limited food supply. Bigger bass live in the aquariums at your local Bass Pro Shops.

7' Med/Mod rod, 30lb braid, sharp hooks, steady retrieve, low rod angle, lift to load when in doubt works for me. No real hooksets involved as they'll hook themselves. Maybe one of those big ones that swim up from behind and do the suck and spit out tricks me? So much submerged obstacles in the waters I like to fish, hooksets usually lead to snags. Only other thing I do is set my drag to 2.25lbs or so and don't go MLF on them.

American Legacy has the DAIWA STEEZ XT 8' HEAVY FAST FLIP & PUNCH CASTING ROD STZXT801HFB on sale for $174.98 currently. It's in a 24hr flash sale. Not sure when it officially ends, but email was sent at 12:49PM today.

They don't all spawn at the same time, they'll do it in waves. Look for staging areas or parts of the lake that are still cooler. I avoid the beds myself. I'd rather get skunked than bed fish.

Looks cool. I wonder how it reacts to wind. Shade is nice and all, but I'm not sure I'd want to loose the ability to just move my rod tip around the front of the yak when a bigger fish makes a run for the other side. Sometimes they just can't make up their minds and keep going back and forth. The front mount looks too far away to do a quick reach around while seated.

10.47 lbs if you round it off. I figured she was at least a DD. It was really hard to estimate the girth based on nothing more than the shadow she casts. Now back to those silly growth charts....Scale trumps chart every time.

Why were you shipping it back? I've gotten a broken one from them and they paid for the return shipping and cross shipped a new one. Although I save my shipping tubes I doubt I'll ever sell a rod and ship it.

Nice seeing another PB caught on a lipless! Now go out there and get her big sister!

Texas growth chart says 9.75 lb is the average for a 25" LMB. Female bass do tend to pack on some extra weight this time of the year and depending on what's in her belly only the scale knows what she weighs.

How big are the bluegill, perch, and crappie in the lake? Does anybody catch and keep them? These guys do compete for the food sources also.