I took my friend Heather out to Lake Mendo on Sunday. This was her first time fishing from a kayak and she was very excited to get to try kayak fishing. We hit the north ramp at 7:15 and the bait guy wasn’t around so we headed over to his shop. The shop opened late     (not too shocking) and we didn’t get on the water until 9am.

We launched from the south ramp and were making our way to the dam when we saw Lost Coast Joe and Capt. Matt.     They mentioned they caught some fish during the early boils but nothing for a while. After hearing that intel we changed course and headed over to Crappie cove. 

We fished until 12:30 and I managed 2 stripers, 1 largemouth, and 1 smallie. Heather landed 1 smallie and a striper. She must have yelled HOLY SHIT about 10 times while fighting that striper. 

Another great day on Mendo!

I think the look on her face says it all.

I went camping at Lake Mendo this past weekend with some buddies. One of my buddies, Scott, just picked up a FND earlier in the week and was dying to break it in with a fish. Mendo did not disappoint!

Scott saw the guy that runs the bait shop on Friday and was told he would be at the north ramp between 5-6am with bait if we wanted to get on the water before his shop opened. Scott and I managed to get a few hours sleep while the rest of our group (non-fisherman) partied it up until 4:45am. We got to the ramp at 6:00 and were disappointed not to see the bait guy at the ramp as he said he would.

We debated launching and using plastic or waiting until the shop opened for live bait. Scott got a pull-down running a Storm Shad the day before and was kind of leaning toward getting on the water right now. I’ve been disappointed enough with plastics that I wanted to wait for the live bait and that’s what we ended up doing.

After killing some time and getting bait, we launched from the north ramp just before 8am. Scott was fishing blind so I brought a marker buoy and told him I would drop it where I marked fish. This worked out great for Scott as he just needed to keep an eye out for the buoy and work that into his path if he saw it. I marked the first fish at 8:30 and set out the buoy. I didn’t get bit on my first or second pass but Scott hooked up right as he went through the area I marked.

It’s great seeing the excitement that these fish bring to someone who has only caught smaller bass. I’m guessing he’s never heard a drag sing and a pole bent over like that. He said a couple of times while fighting the fish, it must be a 15 pounder. I was happy to inform him that that was a typical sized 8-10#. My less than accurate scale measured it at 11#. A very nice fish to break in your new kayak with!

We got off of the water at 10:30 with me landing 2 fish and Scott landing 1. Sunday morning was pretty much the same except we slept in later and I landed 1 and Scott had 1 come unbuttoned before he got it to the boat.

I think I have a new fishing buddy!

The wife and I went to Monterey this weekend and I took MBK’s Basics Skills and Surf Zone class on Sunday. I recognized Scott (Great Bass 2) from the HMB tournament as one of the 4 students and introduced myself. I mainly wanted to take this class for the surf skills part since I have no experience in the surf and I’m going to the Elk tournament next weekend. I thought about bringing my fishing gear but thought that if I did, I’d be too tempted to fish instead of building my kayaking skills. I could have used one of MBK’s kayaks but decided to bring the Marauder since that’s what I’ll be using.

The first thing I noticed was that the MBK’s kayaks are equipped with knee braces. The instructor gave me a set to use on the Marauder but I didn’t have deck loops in the right spots to use them.

The class is broken down into 2 parts and assumes no previous kayaking experience. The first half begins with the instructor teaching the basic strokes on the beach and going over the capsize recovery. After a short paddle from the beach, everyone gets wet and does a practice wet entry into the kayak. They have you do this without using a paddle leash which really makes it harder when you have to hang on to your paddle. After a little practice with the different paddling strokes, the instructor covered the different types of braces.

Since the class was small, we were ahead of schedule and had a little time to mess around on the kayaks. One of the challenges was to see if anyone could stand up in their kayak. Scott was on a Prowler 15 and managed to get on his feet but couldn’t quite stand up. An older guy managed to fully stand up in a Prowler 13. I couldn’t do it on my first attempt because I couldn’t find a place to put my feet but after some thought, I tried it again facing backwards and I was able to stand up right on the Marauder. The one woman in the group had no intentions of attempting this foolishness

After lunch the second part of the class focuses on surf entries and exits. This was what I was really here for. After a short discussion on the beach of the dynamics of a building wave and how to react to its forces, we were off in search of a practice area. The surf in front of MBK was non-existent but we could see some surf building as we looked north.

After a short paddle, we found some surf with waves in the 1-2’ range. They seemed the ideal size for a newb like me to practice on. The instructor demonstrated a landing and guided us in one at a time. We were instructed to come in at an angle so that we could get the feel of leaning into the wave and bracing against it. I was the first one to come in and as soon as that little wave got next to me, I forgot everything I was supposed to do and went right over … showing the others how not to do it.

On the way out from our first landing, the instructor waded out into the waves and held our kayak in place as we leaned and braced into the waves. This was a very effective way for me to learn. We spent the rest of the class practicing in the surf zone.

The class is setup so you can leave when ever you’ve had enough. Scott brought his fishing gear and was the first to leave and go fishing. A little while later the older gentleman was done and his wife soon followed. The instructor asked what I wanted to do and I was like hell, this is what I came here for … I’m gonna get some more time practicing. I ended up getting 60-90 minutes of one-on-one instruction after everyone else left. It got to the point that I was wishing for larger waves to practice on and even practiced riding waves in backwards.

I did wake up very sore and noticed a few bruises from getting rolled around in the surf but I had a blast and am very glad I took the class. I’m still very nervous about launching and landing from Elk next weekend but at least I have some skills to help me through it.

Oh yeah … gear lost to the surf: None!   

Well after a long wait, I finally got my kayak ... just in time for Christmas  Waaaahooooooooo 

Let the pimping begin   

I was checking out the WS Tarpon series of kayaks the other day in a shop and had a hell of a time getting the rubber front hatch lid installed. I simply hooked half of the cover on and then worked the rest of the cover over the lip … not really knowing if it was fully sealed.       I thought I might be doing something wrong so I asked the salesperson and he was doing it the same way I was and it took ~ 60 seconds to get it on and this was on dry ground. The lid was dry so maybe it’s easier to install when it’s wet. Are these hatches really that hard to get sealed? I just find it hard to believe that these kayaks are so popular if the front hatch is that hard to put on. This was a big turn off that stopped me from looking at them any further. I thought I should ask here just incase I was missing something.

Since this is my first post, I’ll give a little info about my self as an introduction to you yakers but before I do, I’d like to say what a great website and forum you guys have here. I can tell be reading some of the posts that many of you have met some good people and made some good friends on this board and while participating in this sport. Hopefully I’ll be able to do the same eventually.

I’ve lived in Santa Rosa most of my life and really love the great location to all of the wonderful things that we have here in NorCal. Two of these things include camping (we love Lake Mendo) and fishing (I may be the world’s worst fisherman though). I’m married with 2 teenagers (a boy and a girl). My 14 year old son loves to fish with his dad and although we usually don’t catch much, the time is well spent. You just gotta love a kid that will initially say no when woke up unexpectedly at 5:30am to go fishing then see him 5 minutes later asking if it’s too late to go with me.

The main reason that I ended up here is because we already have an older 20’ fish & ski boat but I’ve wanted a smaller car top boat that I can fish out of when just my wife and I go camping. We have a travel trailer so camping with the boat requires 2 trucks which is a huge hassle and expense although works nicely for taking the family out on the lake. Initially I was thinking of getting a small 12’ aluminum boat. My wife has already put up valid arguments about this, most notably, where to store it and how we don’t need anymore “projects”. Now, I’m a creative guy and believe me, I could find somewhere to put a 12’ aluminum boat but the “projects” argument is the one that I won’t argue with. The boat I have now has been way more work than I bargained for. I would guess that I’ve put 3-4 hours working on the boat for every 1 hour of use. In fact, in the 18 months or so that I’ve owned it, I haven’t even caught 1 keeper fish out of it (see, world’s worst fisherman) granted the boat has been inoperable for a lot of that time for various reasons. I’m pretty picky about keeping my engines running good. I don’t care too much about the interior or how it looks but it has to run good, especially a boat. I’ve already tried the inflatable raft thing and that was such a pain to make any head-way on that I’ve ruled that out. Other things I was considering were float tubes and the small 1 man pontoon boats.

Last week I wanted to check out a new little lake that I heard about near me. I knew that the lake was too small for our boat and thought this would be a good opportunity to show my wife of another situation where I could use a smaller boat so I turned it into a little outing for the two of us that included a motorcycle ride out there followed by dinner. It turned out that this lake was even too small for an aluminum boat due to the shore access and you’d really need a small raft, canoe, or float tube … or kayak!?

I’ve heard about fishing kayaks but haven’t really given them much thought before last weekend. After some thinking and exploring on the Internet, they really seem to have their place and I could see it being a good fit for my needs. I really like the fact that it can’t really turn into a hellish project. Sure there would be some rigging to get it to your liking but nothing compared to a boat with a motor.

Last night I finally planted the seed! For Father’s day, my wife was going to get me a nice MP3 player which I would have liked but decided to tell her that I would rather put that money towards a fishing kayak instead even if I know that we couldn’t buy it right now. This kind of ruined her plans as other presents were going to be accessories for the MP3 player but I gave her some other “small” fishing items that I could use. I’ll have to wait and see but maybe for my birthday in October, I’ll be able to add a fishing kayak to the garage.

Thanks for reading and hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m able to get out on the water with some of you guys.