The seed is planted

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.

Welcome to the board James  

When you get your kayak = YOUR LUCK WILL CHANGE.
IMO:The great thing about the fishing from a kayak = stealth .......oh...and another thing: "A big fish means free towing"  


....and if those dreaded days of not catching fish ever turns up when your kayak fishing   ....at the end, you can at least say: "Hey, at least a I got a healthy work out from paddling"

Good luck and hope to see you out there soon!

Welcome to the board James.  It's nice to hear from another potential Sonoma County kayak fisherman.

You're right about the lower time investment with the kayak.  First of all, despite all of the possible extras you can mount on the kayak, you're a bit limited by space.  A few rod holders, a fish finder, a bait tank, and maybe an anchor set up is about all you'll be able to do.  Each of those only takes a few hours.  I imagine that not having a motor to tinker with should help you considerably.

Are you planning to stick to freshwater or do you plan to head out to the ocean at anytime.  From the nickname you choose it sounds like you might be hesitant.   Rockfish is opening up in a couple weeks and even "the world's worst fisherman" should be able to catch something out there.

Brian

Another Santa Rosan!

Welcome to the Board. Lots of great info here.

Also - if you're into saltwater fishing from the shore, you might want to check out http://www.pierfishing.com

TONS of info there for fishing Sonoma County Beaches from shore.

Welcome James... we're gaining quite the contingency here in Santa Rosa / Sonoma county.  

You might want to get down to Wind Toys or talk to Sean (aka. Scwafish who deals Malibu Kayaks from Ukiah) about demo'ing a kayak or two before you decide to buy.

Rockfishing season is just around the corner... and you don't want to miss out on that!  Once you experience a nice day of rockfishing along the coast, you'll be hooked for sure.

Erik

Thanks for the welcome guys!

Sharkbait is a handle that I use on a poker forum that I'm a member of and I figured it could be applicable here also. I would plan on using the kayak in the salt also assuming I had a buddy to go out with which it sounds like I could find on this board.

Rockfishing sounds like a blast. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had the chance to do yet. I got thinking that it would be great if I could rent a kayak and do the rockfishing on a rental until I bought one. That would allow me to get a good feel for different models that I’m interested in and also prove to the wife that I would actually use the thing instead of just having it sit in the garage. What do you guys wear when you go out rockfishing? Is a wetsuit needed?

I went over to Wind Toys today to check there kayaks out because I heard that they had rentals. I think it was the owner that helped me. I didn’t get a real good vibe from him. They were busy and he appeared to be stressed out but it seems that he’s like that every time I go in there. I asked if I could sit on the Prowler 13 that they had leaning against the wall and he got it down for me but wouldn’t even put a seat on it!     Once I started looking it over, he started going off on what a piece of crap it was and how he won’t be ordering anymore of them. He really recommended the Hobie Quest which was one of the models that attracted me while I was waiting for someone to answer some of my questions. He said that the Quest was the kayak they all use to fish out of and I think he was sincere about it being a better fishing kayak (in his mind) and not saying that as a salesman. I say that because he had a ton of Wilderness Tarpon’s and didn’t push those at all. I will say that the Quest seemed to fit like a glove … not sure how it handles in the water but it’s one that I’ll be looking into. Anyways it turned out that they don’t rent kayaks there which is too bad but when I asked about a demo, he said I could take one out to Spring Lake for a demo. Too bad about the rental thing because I don’t think there are any other places that rent them in Sonoma County.

They don't rent kayaks at Wind Toys?  That must be new... they've always had a rental fleet in the past... in fact the one I own is a rental boat that they sold off at their annual sale... Hmmm.

I'd say the Tarpons would be worth a try as well as the Prowler.  Not familiar with the Hobie Quest.  If length isn't an issue, I'd recommend the longer boats like 14 or 15 feet... quite a bit faster and more efficient in the water.  

I'd recommend giving Scwafish a call and hooking up with him for a demo at Lake Mendocino... Malibu Kayaks has some very nice boats and Sean will take good care of you.

There are a couple of other rental places along the coast... one in Bodega bay and I think there is one in Tomales bay near Marshall.  Don't remember the names of them.

Standard wear in the ocean is at least a farmer john wetsuit with booties (I wear a 3 mil), paddling jacket or pullover and PFD.

Erik