dickenscpa

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.