Smartstrike and Kayak Fishing

[Koz]

I love fishing out of my kayak, but the obvious drawbacks are range and time to travel. In a bass boat you can cover a lot of water and easily jump from spot to spot on a big lake.

 

I recently bought an Old Town Autopilot, so that cuts some time off my time to travel from spot to spot, not to mention that I'm not worn out when I get to a fishing spot. And now that I can cover more water, the other week I upgraded the maps for my Helix 7 DI SI from the base maps to Lakemaster and because it was on sale I bought the premium version with Smartstrike.

 

In case you don't know, with Smartstrike you pick your lake, your target species, and then variables like time of year, time of day, cloud cover, and wind conditions and the software will parse that data and highlight likely locations on the map for your target species. Today I gave it a try.

 

The weather was warm for winter (60's), windy and cloudy and a front bringing rain was moving in. I loaded up Smartstrike and it showed target areas  with the closes being about 1/2 mile from my house where I launch. When I arrived at the first spot my electronics lit up like a Christmas tree with bait fish and bigger fish. I set my alarm to the middle setting for fish size and it kept chirping at me with single fish and schooling fish. The wind was pretty strong up and changing directions, so spot lock kept me moving as it tried to keep me headed into the wind. I fished an A-rig for about 10 minutes but caught nothing.

 

With the weather bearing down on me, my goal was to hit other Smartstrike locations to see if they were holding fish. I would also see what popped up as I ran from spot to spot. In the end, 4 of the 6 Smartstrike location were holding fish. And while I saw bait in between my nav points, I never saw more than a single fish while motoring. I didn't do any additional fishing during this time because I could see the rain coming off in the distance.

 

Of course, it was a limited run of less than two hours on a single winter day, so the results are anecdotal at this point. It will take a lot more trips under different weather conditions in different seasons and I'll actually have to catch fish to draw any conclusions as to how well it works. But my initial impression is a good one.

 

For those of you have boated for years you may not think this investment is worth it. You may be confident with your experience and map reading capabilities. But as someone who has bank fished 95% of their life on ponds and lagoons, it will help me get better with reading maps on bigger lakes. And as a kayak angler I can use this before I fish and then narrow down which ramp to launch from so I'm closer to prime locations.

 

I'm also thinking of entering a few BASS and / or Hobie kayak tournaments next year and this may come in handy on lakes I have never fished before.

 

I made it back to my dock just as the skies opened up, so I'm glad I didn't stay out there. If I have time I'll give it a try again tomorrow and hopefully spend some time actually fishing.

[FishTax]

Great review, please continue to update this as I will be considering this purchase next year probably if I start fishing larger lakes. 

[Koz]

47 minutes ago, FishTax said:

Great review, please continue to update this as I will be considering this purchase next year probably if I start fishing larger lakes. 

I will, It's just been too dang cold and windy to get out on the lake lately.

 

It's frustrating to have these new toys and not be able to use them.  I'm really looking forward to the long, summer days and fishing for hours after work.

[FishTax]

@Koz I feel that. I got helix 7 on Black Friday and still haven't gotten it wet yet.almost did yesterday but got dark too quick on me. Going to break it in Friday hopefully

[GaryH]

On 12/9/2023 at 2:38 PM, Koz said:

 

I'm also thinking of entering a few BASS and / or Hobie kayak tournaments next year and this may come in handy on lakes I have never fished before.

 

This is exactly what I use it for. It can save you time fishing a new lake and cut back on some of practice time on bad areas. Took me awhile to trust it but so far it’s not perfect but usually pretty accurate.