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Messages - Fish 'n Brew

Pages: 1 ... 159 160 [161] 162 163 ... 165
2401
Damn!   Can't make it Saturday.  I'll watch the hookups for another time.  I need to dunk the saltwater virgin yak in the bay soon.  Last year I stuck to the lakes and the Delta.  I think the time has come for the Bay.

Martin

2402
Jed,
   Congrats on the Hali.  Let me know when you're going out again.  I think it's time for my Hobie to get in the salt water for the first time.  The new live well should work well for the Hali bait.

Martin

2403
Wish I could join you.  The action there was pretty good last week.  Unfortunately this Friday is tied up with WAF activities.  I may go tomorow or Thursday if anyone is interested in going along.

Martin

2404
Anybody interested in fishing San Pablo Reservoir Wednesday or Thursday, this week?  I haven't made definite plans but either day works for me if anyone's interested.  I can't make it Friday this week.

2405
For Sale / Re: My version of the Hook 1 bait tank for sale $90
« on: March 24, 2009, 09:29:32 AM »
Ariel,
   I'll take it if you still have it.  I sent you an e-mail with my contact info.

Martin

2406
Wow!  As usual, great fish and great pictures.  I need to get out with you sometime soon and learn some of those "tricks".

Martin

2407
Met up with Jedmo and Dave this morning at San Pablo.  Unlike our last trip, this one was productive.  I got 4, including one with a jaw like Jay Leno that I caught trolling a very small Rainbow Rapala along the dam.  Jedmo also got 3 or 4, including one that earned him the 5 Lb. + "whopper" hat from EBMUD.  All of the fish were good size.  I would guess somewhere between 1 1/2 to 3 Lbs.  I didn't take any pictures but Jedmo will follow up with more details and pictures.  A great day on the water!

2408
Thanks for the tip.

2409
Jedmo, Dave and I will be trying San Pablo reservoir again on Thursday.  We will be launching at the concession center entrance shortly after 7:00 following yak inspections at the main launch entrance.  The weather forecast is looking like a great day to be on the water. The water should be much clearer than when we tried last time.  There have been massive plants from Lassen since opening day, just a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe we can catch some of the "mutants" this time.  All yakers are welcome to join us.  I'll bring some home brew to celebrate the catches.

Martin

2410
I'm certainly not an authority on the subject but I have been trolling for trout and striper for a couple of years.  I find the bait casting reels to be much better because the line twist you mentioned is not an issue with them.  I will occasionally troll with a spinning reel and every time I do, I end up with a twisted mess.  I have also tried using a high quality ball bearing swivel at the attachment point for the lure, but it seems to negatively effect the action of the lure and the line twist still seems to be a problem.  I troll various Rapalas and rattle traps with the bait casting rig without any line twist problems.

Martin

2411
Jedmo,
   Let me know when you and Dave are ready to try San Pablo or Shadow Cliffs again, especially on a week day.  The water should be clear enough for another try at San Pablo.  I just bottled a new batch of "home brew" and I'll bring some along for the after catch celebration.

Martin

2412
Met up with Jedmo and Fishing Dave this morning at San Pablo.  Boat inspections weren't available at the rec center entrance where we chose to launch, but they were uneventful at the main entrance.  We hit the water at about 7:30.  Water is really cloudy and full of debris from the recent storms. There was a 3000 Lb. plant on Wednesday. Trolling Rapalas produced nothing.  The lady at the rec center recommended soaking chartreuse power bait.   We gave that a try too but only Dave got a fish.  We stayed on the water until about three but the bite never came. There were a few fish being caught on the shore but all in all, a very slow day; still a good day fishing with the NCKA gang.  Great meeting Dave and Jedmo.  We will hit it again when the water clears up.

2413
I have had good luck with rapalas.  Usually fire tigers of various sizes as well as the trout pattern ones.  According to the latest posting of rules by EBMUD, kayak launching will be allowed from the beach ares near the dam.  I have a moss green Tandem Hobie Outfitter.  It's easy to spot because it sits pretty high in the water with only one seat occupied.  I carry it on top of a white Accord.

2414
Anyone interested in trolling for trout at San Pablo Reservoir, Friday?  There have been some really large plants and I doubt that many people have fished due to the bad weather since opening day, last Saturday.  I plan to get to the main gate with my very dry and clean yak for an inspection at 7 then drive to the entrance near the dam and launch between 7 and 7:30. 

Martin

2415
General Talk / Jet Kayak
« on: March 01, 2009, 04:43:05 PM »









Interesting article about another Kayak "sport"


Jet kayaking over the Niagara Falls
Shaun Baker plans to leap over waterfalls in his own invention – a jet kayak. And he even has his eyes set on Niagara, he tells Chris Mooney
Shaun Baker kayaks over a waterfall.

Shaun Baker
What kind of a lunatic would throw himself over a giant waterfall in a flimsy piece of plastic not much bigger than a child’s toy? Stand up, Shaun Baker, an extreme kayaker from Maidenhead, Berkshire.

This nine-time British whitewater freestyle kayaking champion already holds the world record for the longest freefall over a waterfall. That was a drop of almost 65ft off the Aldeyjarfoss falls on the Skjalfandafljot, a glacial river in Iceland, in 1996. Now he is looking for even higher waterfalls to leap over. Indeed, he aims eventually to take on the big daddy of them all — Niagara.

No one has gone over the top of this 167ft monster in a kayak or canoe and survived. But Baker has a secret weapon to help him stay clear of the vertical torrent that forces any object caught up in large waterfalls under the surface — usually with fatal consequences for swimmers or canoeists. It’s a 330cc two-stroke engine. He has invented the world’s first jet kayak.

“I’m planning to run some huge, record-breaking waterfalls,” says Baker, 44. “The ones I had to walk away from in the past because I simply would not have been able to clear the rocks at the bottom. This time I can stop 10 metres from the edge, fire the engine up and get a ballistic burst of speed and just fly right over the top. Fifty metres downstream — that’s where I’m going to land — literally flying.”

Baker has already recorded a top speed of 25mph in his invention and believes the jet kayak will give him the extra acceleration to tackle higher, more dangerous falls for the first time.Before this can happen, however, there’s a lot of work to do, and I joined him alongside Bray Lake, not far from his home, as he made refinements to his motorised kayak in preparation for future record attempts.

You may remember him from an episode of Top Gear in 2006, when he raced his jet-propelled craft along an Icelandic lake against Richard Hammond on the bank in a Land Rover Tomcat 4x4. That original, rough-hewn creation has been through several refinements since.

It consists of a 6½ft-long kayak with a one-gallon tank of petrol (pre-mixed with some oil) and a flattened two-stroke engine crammed into the base. Two intakes at the top of the kayak suck in air to light the petrol/oil mix in the carburettor. The engine then powers a jet turbine — similar to the hydro jets used in jet skis — at the rear of the kayak, which sucks in water then fires it out of the back, sending the kayak surging forwards.

In the finished version, the jet kayak will be able to switch to compressed air canisters inside the craft when the air intakes are submerged. Baker perches above the steaming hot engine, with only a layer of aluminium and his wetsuit for protection. Speed is controlled by a throttle on the paddle.

Remarkably it is still officially classed as a kayak, albeit a powered one. “We talked to the International Canoe Federation to find out exactly what a kayak is and what it isn’t,” explains Baker. “You must use standard equipment, and you can’t have steering mechanisms, just paddles or leaning.”

The genesis of Baker’s remarkable craft came over Christmas lunch about four years ago. In 30 years of taking kayaks to places they don’t belong, he had ridden his conventional kayak off the highest dunes in the Sahara and clocked up more than 20 “first descents” of waterfalls. He had also piloted a standard plastic kayak down some of the world’s most demanding ski slopes at 39.1mph to break the kayak land-speed record.

He’d done it all and he was bored. Then, over Christmas pudding, a friend had an idea. “I was desperate to up the stakes, and he just said, ‘Well, remember what Evel Knievel did when he wanted to get better? He put a rocket on the back of his bike and tried to jump Snake River Canyon. We could build the fastest kayak ever made.’ Eureka!” explains Baker. “We quickly realised you didn’t actually need a rocket, thankfully.”

And so the jet kayak was conceived. Baker teaches kayaking and one of his pupils, who was studying engineering at Brunel University, created the initial design for his final-year dissertation — but Baker is the only person who has ever dared to ride it.

In 2007 he and his team took the craft to Dorney Lake, Windsor, the traditional training area for Eton college’s rowing club, and grabbed the world record for the fastest kayak paddled — a consistent 25mph over 100 metres.

He’s now looking for extra sponsorship — he estimates he needs £100,000 — to make his invention even faster. If all goes well, he could make a record-breaking leap of more than 100ft within the next year.

He won’t name which waterfalls he’s planning to tackle specifically “because there may be access problems”. Basically he may get into trouble. But, he says, to begin with he’s “looking at the rockier rivers in north Wales and Snowdonia”.

“Do I look worried?” he adds, looking extremely nervous. “There are two hazards you will encounter when descending from a large waterfall. The first is the rocks below, and the second is what we call the towback, which is where you are kept submerged by the undertow and will find it very difficult to emerge.

“As you paddle off the end of a waterfall, there is a moment where your centre of gravity reaches thin air, but the rear of the kayak is still buoyant and held by the water behind you. If you are going too slowly, you will start falling vertically. The faster you go, the closer you can keep the boat at a horizontal angle and gain some momentum to propel yourself forward and away from danger.

“There is another risk in going that fast, though, which is landing completely flat. It’s like jumping out of a third-storey window and landing on your backside in the driveway. Spinal compression is an injury I don’t want to experience again.”

Yet even with these horrors in mind, Baker is drawn irresistibly to the ultimate challenge of Niagara. These giant falls, which straddle the border between the United States and Canada, have never been conquered in this way, and if he is to succeed in his mission it will take years of planning.

Baker is already thinking through the logistics. “One guy tried it in a canoe when I was out there recently, and he was very confident, but he drowned. It’s been done in a barrel, and even then you’re getting underwater and you can sometimes be in there for hours. They build in an air supply, which obviously you can’t do in a kayak.

“You’d need to build in an aerofoil system so you can actually fly through the air, and from that sort of height — 160ft — you’d need it, trust me. If you get caught in the towback, you drown. That’s it. But yeah, it’s possible.”

Jet kayaking is not a comfortable sport. “It burns me all the time,” Baker admits. “My legs are resting inches from the engine and the pipe quite often melts through 5mm of wetsuit. But the ‘electrocutions’ are the worst. When we raced for Top Gear . . . I was getting water over my legs, which then sent the circuit through me instead of the spark plug. Tens of thousands of volts through my butt and out through my arms. It caused me to grip the throttle involuntarily, so I was going through an iceberg field at top speed — 25mph. I won, but these things kind of stay in your memory.”

Yet, for all its faults, Baker’s invention works. The assembled gang of engineers and crew alongside the banks of Bray Lake frown as he putters out onto the glassy water and revs the engine hard — “If that engine goes, it’s not just bits of metal we’ll be seeing, it’s bits of testicle,” I hear someone mutter. But with a roar, and a considerable bow wave, he sends ducks quacking indignantly to cheers of approval from a watching crowd.


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