NorCal Kayak Anglers
General => General Talk => Topic started by: MistralWind on April 24, 2012, 10:20:13 PM
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I've only been a kayaker for about 1.5 years. New to the sport. Up till then the thought of kayak FISHING never even crossed my mind. I always thought kayaking was a little "out there". Somewhat of a purist type sport with pretty little suits and perfect paddling strokes. Something someone would take up to watch Orca whales or look at wildlife through binoculars and then go drink some green tea. I am and always will be a fisherman. I just never put 2 and 2 together. Totally blind to the possibilities.
It wasn't until I saw some videos on YouTube showing kayakers with rob holders and fishing poles that the great ignorance began to lift. Suddenly the world changed. Those people looked just like me. I no longer had to just fish from shore. I no longer had to spend a fortune on power boats/equipment for certain waters/species. I found a happy medium. The kayak. So simple. A piece of plastic was all it took. Self-limiting but also with a horizon of possibilities.
I see the looks now at the boat ramp or along the shore. Some see it. Some don't. They ask questions. They give a double take. They wonder about the safety. They wonder about the freedom. Some still see us as fruitcakes. And some see us as astronauts.
I see a bright future for this sport. We are really just pioneers. The great masses still haven't had that light bulb turn on yet.
How did you get here? And how did you find this great sport so early?
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Early to me would be guys like 02B or RB fishin off yaks in the 70's= I feel like Johnny-come-lately.
Still was cool to fish at Elk 2X while that lasted. I got my yak after sitting in OC campground wondering what else I could do to fill the day after diving for abs in the morning. Kayak Fishing Rules!!! :groupwave
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I had a small kayak I used for ab diving, but had no idea anyone fished off them. One day I decided to give it a try. Soon after that I found NCKA and it was all downhill from there. I find it a way to take advantage of opportunities I wouldn't otherwise have. I have a power boat, but I can't take that to many of the places I can go with the yak. Even when I can take the pb, I still enjoy the yak.
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Jim,
I only wish I had seen some of you guys fishing in kayaks years ago while I was bank fishing for trout/bass etc. Never happened. I might have jumped onboard a lot sooner!
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I have a Hobie Pro Angler and a 15' Gregor MX510 aluminum boat. I have not used the Gregor since last July, always out in the PA. I don't even remember how I found out about the PA three years ago..........I do remember seeing videos on youtube and I thought the PA would be great for the high country lakes where I can't get the Gregor into. Now about the only fishing I do is the high country lakes and I am usually the only one on the water. It is nice to be on the water and not have a bunch of power boaters or jet skies buzzing everywhere.
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Great story man. I have been a kayaker since age seven and a grew up fishing but I never put the two together until last year. Since then I fell head over heels for the sport. I run a kayak shop, and I've dedicated over half of my kayak shop to fishing. I agree that more people need to learn about Our sport. I would be open to ideas anyone had about helping to get new commers into kayak fishing.
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I was into fishing since I was about 10.
I got into paddling after a trip to AK in 1993 after I graduated. A friend and I rented a canoe on Admiralty island and met a bunch of kayakers one days' paddle into the island. They were in sleek sea kayaks and had camped there for a week, fresh veggies procured weekly from town. Once I was back in SF I hooked up with Outdoors Unlimited and learned to kayak.
That lead me to instructing for CA Canoe and Kayak, which then led me back to Alaska in 1997.
I got into salmon fishing in AK since you could actually catch fish, and then, in the winter of 1998 I paddled out to a kelp bed off of Santa Barbara to combine the two pursuits. I caught a 16" calico on a fishtrap and 10lb spinning rod. I remember broaching my Prijon sit-in river boat in the surf and having to ride it in sideways, keeping an eagle eye on my goodie bag on deck so that I wouldn't lose that fish!
I sold the Prijon and picked up two SOT kayaks once we settled in Santa Cruz in 1999, and was soooo stoked to meet Mooch at a fishing tournament. He turned me onto the NCKA and it's been so ever since :smt044
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Grew up fishing Lake Mendo than moved to Wyo when I was 13 and spent my early yrs banking the Swift Creek/Salt river/Snake river!!! 35 yrs ago Star Valley was fishing Paradise when your a teen...I went from banking to float tubing mainly high elevation lakes....Was float tubing OC back in 06' and was feeling like bait.......easy choice... sitting on some plastic or dangling legs in water looking like a tasty meal... :smt005
Kept running into NCKA peeps at OC Bloodbath was the one that got me to join up said "dude you got to join!!! we do tournys, you can win prizes, we have BBQ's, Keggers :smt005 Been the most fun I've ever had fishing...would love to go back to Star Valley and do salt creek on my yak...........record browns, huge cuts... :smt044 :smt044 :smt044
Once you go Yak you never go Back!!! :smt044 :smt044 :smt044
Pisean that AK stuff must've been the bomb...that's what I really want to do is AK yak fish trip... Allan's Lapaz trip was my "First" trip and it was a week of fishing heaven...but I like the thought of going to AK and getting some big ass lings/butts/and everything else that goes with it!!! :smt007
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I had an uncle in SoCal dabbling with yak fishing around 2000. After talking with him on the phone one evening about it, the light bulb went off and within a few weeks I had picked up a nice Pro-Explorer off eBay and got it shipped up here. It was probably 5 years of paddling and fishing before I saw another kayak fishermen here in the north Sac valley. I've had my share of boats over the years, but the yak is where I spend 90% of my fishing time. My Montauk now serves mainly family duties over fishing duties. :smt001
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I come from a fishing family and have been on the water in one form or another since I was 5. Not bragging here...I have a 36 ft sport fisher, a 21 ft bass boat, a 15 ft Klamath tincan, 2 wavewalkers pedal yaks, a canoe ,several other generic paddlecraft, and a very patient wife. I have owned numerous grand old wooden hull moneysinks and scads of fiberglass runabouts. As you can see I have a serious obsession with botes. It was only natural I exploit the yakking platform in furtherance of this pursuit.
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Great thread! :smt003
Growing up I was always interested in fishing, but at some point computers took over my life and I didn't fish for many years. Then one day I decided, hey I want to learn how to catch trout. So I started fishing the EBP's for trout, and refound my love for fishing again. Then after a few years of that I wanted to try bass fishing, and started eyeing float tubes. I looked up many models and did a bunch of research and then talked to a friend of mine about it. He said, dude, get a kayak instead, you can fish in the Ocean! I was like, nooooooooo way, thats crazy! Why would I do that? Just got into bass fishing (and not good at it at all) and I wanna get a float tube.
He convinced me to go out and rent a kayak and go out fishing with him and his buddy Tim. I rented a Hobie Outback from Mel Cottons and we went to Loch Lomond in Santa Cruz, which was my favorite trout lake at the time. From the moment we launched it was like I was in a differrent world! Time slooooowed down to the pace of nature, and we went paddling and fishing all around the lake. Only my friend hoooked up, but after that day *I* was hooked for life :smt003
Here is a video of that day, my first day ever Kayak Fishing! :smt001
Kayak Fishing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk923JiFca4#)
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dont tell anyone our lil'secret we have......they'll all find out soon enough and then will be here on NCKA asking silly newbie questions real soon. :smt003
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been fishing since before i can remember.
Then the float tube.
Uncle fishunter wouldn't shut up about the idea of kayak fishing. So i said DO IT so i have an excuse.
He did.
Moochacho brought a P-15 for me to lake mendo and gave me shad rap.
I caught fish & My dad bought a Yak.
We Never looked back
Gotta love the Madness :smt007
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Fun thread...
Like most of us I had always liked fishing, but decided to start getting serious about getting off the bank and on the water a few years ago. Tried a float tube, and bought a couple different boats that needed too much work. I thought a canoe would be the answer, but then I saw ChuckE at a Fred Hall show, with a pimped fishing kayak. Still, I blew off kayaks as too expensive, or too hardcore, (thinking you had to do Eskimo rolls and stuff). Finally I found NCKA, started reading up, and all the reports induced me to buy a yak at CCK and I was in business.
Kayaks are the perfect watercraft, imo, exactly what I had wanted ever since I was a kid, only I didn't know it til my late 30's.
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I've always been into fishing ....grew up fishing suisun bay and the delta waterways. used to pull big bass outta contra loma and was proud when i caught a big catfish. die get on the ocean a few times a year for salmon & rockfish and fished with my uncle on the bay for halibut. this kayak thing took me to another level though...now I'm into spearfishing and ab diving, fish in the ocean more times then i fish the delta and my freezer is a lot full then it used to be. this is how i found kayak angling:
i seen a post on the fish sniffer , a mother trip to big sur that included big reds , lings and a hali.. " so cool" i thought but i never considered myself to be a kayaker type dude and thought that only skinny people did stuff like that. i did a lil more research and found this website and learned a bunch , me and keo "ja boy" went out to monterey and rented some and had a blast , next thing you know i pulled the plug and flipped me a x factor and now here i am.
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I fish since I was a little kid with my uncles. My first kayak was the "Scrambler" and I Ab dive from that yak for years until I saw saw a guy fish from the kayak in Mendocino. Found this great community from a sale guy at West Marin in Concord while shopping for a new anchor. That was 6 years ago and now you know the rest of the story :smut003
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Shit...for about 2 minutes, I thought I had invented kayak fishing! :smt044 I had grown up hopping rocks along the banks of rivers here in NorCal fishing for trout. I would also hit up the delta for catfish with my buddies. When my dad and I weren't fishing for trout in streams, we would sometimes rent a boat and troll for trout at Chabot. I remember he used to buy me pink popcorn at the bait shop at Chabot. Good stuff. In high school I started crabbing off piers. I love crab and crabbing. I came to realize over the years that to really catch fish, you need a boat. I was bummed because I couldn't afford a boat or have a place to store one. Then I started thinking...kayaks can go in the ocean or freshwater...what if I brought a fishing pole with me?!?! Or what if I could haul up a crab net off a kayak?!?! Holy shit! I'm onto something here, I thought. So I googled fishing kayaks and saw that someone had already invented them! Ok, its all good, I didn't invent kayak fishing, but I am still onto something here! So the next thing I googled was Kayak Crabbing in Northern California...and look what came up! http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?page=18 (http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?page=18) Holy crap! People are doing exactly what I want to do right here in the bay area! From that day on (2006), I read the NCKA fishing reports like you would the daily news. I came to realize that I could do it too, and take full advantage of the area we live in, which I believe is incredible if your a fisherman. It took me about 4.5 YEARS of reading reports before I sacked up and dropped the money to buy my first yak and all the gear. I got laid off from my job and that was the straw that broke the camels back, I saw Chadrock was selling a T15, pulled the trigger and haven't looked back! I havent regretted buying a kayak and all the gear for one second! The start up cost is a little bit, but after that, its not much. And I've been known to be "frugal" :smt003 Its awesome fishing out in Monterey next to huge expensive boats and be catching the same thing as them, same goes for the over the top bass boats. We all catch the same fish. I've got a boat that is good in all kinds of water, for any kind of fishing! HA! Kayak fishing is whats up!
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Same here. Been fishing bay area since 2012. From pier, camp, shore, and boat. Always wondering what i can do more to fish on my free time without spending a lot with the charter. Then i found a youtube videos in florida kayak fishing. From there, i said to myself “this is the sport im looking for.” Then found some ncka videos kayak fishing. I started with a jackson big tuna. I fell in love with kayak. Then i bought OB. Damn i love it even more! I joined ncka then it opened up more fishing opportunities and got new friends. Now, its addiction.
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It's only been one year, started kayak fishing in March 2017. Been fishing my whole life but this is whole new ball game and beast. I thought after buying my kayak and paddle I was pretty much set (since I already have all the fishing gear). I quickly came to realize that I haven't even come close. The accessories, kayak transportation, safety gear and everything else ran me almost 3x more than what I paid for the kayak itself. but I don't regret it one bit. met a lot of cool people on the water that are lifelong friends.
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Ok, so I always had boats nothing fancy. So I started wondering how could I get onto some of the lakes that are private near the open end by businesses? I didn't like the idea of float tubing. Then kayask popped into my head. From there I googled kayak fishing and boom there it was a whole community. Since then I own 2 kayaks and I never did hit them lakes but I loove kayak fishing
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