Fun report.

I've never landed a single squid yet w/my amazon-purchased squid jigs.

I was chatting w/one of the MBK guys and he said he personally still uses sabikis, he just loses too many w/the squid jigs. So I gave that a try recently. Finally got my first two squid! I didn't parlay them into fish, but I was thrilled anyway, after so many trips trying.

That said, after those first two, I realized why squid jigs are so popular. I started pulling up every damn thing in the sea...  jacksmelt, mackrel, sand dabs, and just loads of gobies, baby rockfish, croakers (I think... tiny things - just a couple inches long). Gave up on squid and started using some of these for bait for halibut.

I managed to two hali close to the boat (using jacksmelt/mackrel for bait) but lost both. Still have yet to catch a single halibut while kayaking but hopefully it'll come lol.

I only recently started using sabikis in that area and while I really appreciate the ease of catching smelt, I swear at least the last couple times I went they are all monsters in that area. Like I get the whole "bigger bait bigger fish" concept, but all these jacksmelt are so big I feel like they're too big for targetting anything but ling haha.

Yessir... absolutely considered watersnake, as well as minn kota endura as the two main options on the cheaper side of things. It all came down to mounting and ease for me.

I told myself I'd figure out good mounting options and watched oodles of videos and such on how various people approached mounting both those options. In the end, I figured I'd just never have the time/energy to actually do all that after a year of debating with myself.

There's also some nice safety/convenience aspects to the bixpy... you can operate it remotely with a controller you can strap to your hand/vest, and it's got an emergency killswitch mechanism you can attach to yourself as well so if you fall out your yak, the motor just cuts automatically.

But really it came down to the ease of mounting in a way that I could raise/lower the motor pretty easily and still use my regular pedal/steering as needed at the same time. If I didn't have a full time job and a million other things to do already I would have gone a more DIY route but in the end I just wanted to get something that worked and get on the water lol

Quote from: 123engineering on November 16, 2022, 01:00:50 PM

Quote from: NowhereMan on November 16, 2022, 12:53:57 PM

Quote from: 123engineering on November 15, 2022, 08:43:50 PM

Bixpy currently has a 20% off Holiday Sale, the biggest sale I have ever seen.

Paul

That's tempting...

Try to input NCKA discount code to see if we get additional discount

Paul

Tried it and it works! Shipping is free, so total with tax comes out to $1035.64.

Now it's even more tempting...

I literally paid $400 more for this just a couple weeks ago, y'all are killing me lmao!

Oh man, just bought one a couple weeks ago and missed this post... fml lol

Thanks for posting this anyway, hope others can take advantage of it. 

Very happy with it so far.

Maybe it's just me, but I hate mono when snaring. I was out this weekend and had one reel with a topshot of mono and one that had straight braid. The mono stretches so much that I couldn't get a good hook set and I felt like I was missing crab. The rod that had just the braid on the reel did much better. I eventually cut off the mono and got a keeper on the next pull. Could totally have been a coincidence, but I definitely felt the snare a lot better without the mono.

Not just you! 

While on this topic, anyone have a rec for a snare that they like? I've seen some at the bait shop, some on Amazon, mostly seem pretty similar. Any one brand work better than another? Thanks!

I'm sure I'm overspending but I've been buying crabslayer and torpedo crab snares... both made by locals and yes they're pricey, but I don't tend to lose snares very often and both makers have quality stuff that holds up pretty well. They work way better than anything I've ever seen from Amazon (for me anyway, ymmv).

I bought several different kinds from Amazon years ago when I was just starting and I've thrown them all away at this point lol

I wonder if this is a sign of a bad season or if they tend to come in later in the year sometimes?

I worry about stuff like green crab infestation and changing water conditions.

FWIW, I hit Doran about a week ago for a dual-purpose scouting run and red rock crab attempt.

The reds were slow compared to normal.

I caught (and threw back of course) literally only one keeper size dungie, and that one was actually during a random test-drop near the launch ramp - I saw no dungies once I got outside the jetties except for some babies.

That was definitely way less productive than I would have expected.

Granted, I've only been out kayak-crabbing in Doran starting last season, but I went probably a dozen times at this past year and never once skunked completely on dungies (and even when they were slow I could usually land a load of reds every time).

Of course all of this could have just been random luck too heh.