Timing is EVERYTHING

the fishing has started to get good.  really good.

about a week ago, i caught my personal best bluefish.  15 lbs.  pow!  the brute took me on a sleigh ride all around the harbor, and it took me 20 minutes to reel in.  i was on my kayak, and was having the hardest time working it.  if i set the drag too loose, it would take off.  if the drag was too tight, it would just drag me around.  it was hard enough trying not to bump into the boats tied up on their moorings.  when i finally landed it, and laid it down inside the kayak, its head and those chompers were six inches from my crotch.  yowzers!  a bit too close for comfort.  i didn't even take a picture as i wanted that thing weighed and released pronto.

this past weekend, i had one of my best days fishing ever.  i had been going to this local outflow area where i was having fun catching snappers and small stripers on light tackle.  on thursday night, i caught 7 snapper blues and 1 tiny striped bass on zoom flukes in the arkansas shiner color in about 1.5 hours of fishing.  not bad, but not great.  (i know what you are thinking...why would i use soft plastics with blues around?  the answer is that i had no choice.  for whatever reason, they wouldn't hit anything else.)

i considered it good practice as i was perfecting the slow retrieve/twitch that would prove to be key.  i went back around the same tide on friday, and it was completely different.  stripers were busting on bait everywhere!  i kid you not, i landed 20+ stripers in 1 hour.  the largest was 32", and the rest were around 25-26".  for about 40 minutes, i caught a striper every cast....literally.  some other anglers saw all the commotion, and came over and tried to join in.  they asked what i was using, and i told them that the zoom super salty flukes were producing, and I even gave them a few.  they couldn't get the presentation right, so i was the only one catching fish.  all that practice paid off.  the crazy thing was that i left to go home even with the fish still biting.

i ended up taking one home and you can see what they were gorging themselves on...peanut bunker.

on saturday, i went back around the same tide again, and while i caught 7 stripers, the largest one was 14".  it is really amazing how timing is everything.  i'm studying my log to see if i can pinpoint why friday was so different than thursday and saturday.

also, i'm headed to east long island this weekend, and going to Montauk on Sunday to fish the blitz.  this time around, i'm going to focus more on taking pictures for the blog (when i'm not chasing the albies).

stay salty.  XXA

Nervous Water

i was lucky this past weekend to get out and go fishing three times. on friday, i made a last minute decision to catch the evening tide and try to line some porgy for dinner. i launched the kayak 5 minutes from my house at around 4:45 PM, which was about 1.75 hours before high tide. the water temperatures were in the low 70s (a bit too hot) and the wind was nonexistent.  failing at finding any scup, i started paddling around the harbor.

per usual, there was bunker everywhere.

 

imagine there to be about 20 of these pods, all around the boat moorings.  for the most part, there were no bass or blues working them.  they seemed to be so content, just flipping about, slowly moving from one area to another.  with the kayak, i can get extremely close to these schools, and i can see the hundreds of adult bunker just circling around.

knowing that live bait was my best bet to catch  something, i snagged a bunker, put it on a circle hook and left the pole in my flush mount rod holder.  i then alternated between flies and lures, casting around the edges of the pods to see if anything would take.

unfortunately, nada.

my thought was that it was just too hot for any action.  no worries, though.  this just means that september, when the water has cooled down, is going to be craaaaaazzzzyy!

XXA

Oracles

in antiquity, there were oracles who prophesied the future, divined by the gods.  later, in the 1500s, there was Nostradamus.  today, there are meteorologists who prophesize based on science. isn't it amazing how often meteorologists get it wrong?  if there is one thing i have learned in my career/life, it's that past performance is not indicative of future results.

it's amazing how much we anglers depend on the weather.  we study, we prepare, we make journal entries, all in the hope that we can decipher not only when to go fishing, but how the weather helps or hurts our success.

my plan was to go out fishing on the yak by 4:30 AM this past saturday.  the sunrises at around 5:45, so it gave me about an hour of fishing in the dark.  there is so much bunker around, and with the recent cooler temperatures, i thought it would be ideal setup for catching some stripers.

i check weather.com and wunderground.com for weather daily (it's amazing how they differ sometimes).  for saturday morning, it predicted a 20% chance of rain all day, and wind of around 6 mph out of east.

i woke up around 3:15 AM, did my 'business', packed up and left around 4:00.  i arrived at the launch site, and was prepared to launch when i noticed a stiff breeze.  i ignored it, hopped in the kayak, and started paddling, i then noticed all the noise.  all the boats that were docked at their slips were rocking about and occasionally bumping into the sides of their slips.  i thought that it was pretty weird, because 6 mph is essentially no wind.  each time i've gone out in similar wind situations, the water has been like glass.  i checked my weather apps again, and there had been no change from the night before.  wind around 7 mph.

as i paddled out of the protected area into open water, i saw tiny little whitecaps.  what the whaaa?  i decided to check the western long island sound weather buoy for wind data.  the wind was 17 mph with gusts up to 22 mph. okay, that made so much more sense.

i thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to paddle back to the car.  it wasn't worth it to fish in that scenario.  i try not to kayak in winds greater than 15 mph because paddling the freedomhawk in that kind of wind is a chore, and setting up a good drift is next to impossible.  i also convinced myself that the bait would be pushed down a bit, so i wouldn't be able to find them.

since i was up so early, i ended up going to a local park on the water, and fishing off a point.  i caught one snapper blue (didn't take a picture) on a kastmaster, had another one chase down my skitter pop (amazing that i didn't hook up there), and another one bite off the tail of my storm wildeye shad pearl.

anyways, on the leeward side of the point, there were a bunch of silversides.  every time a twig or something floated by, they would hurdle it as if it were fun.  never seen that before.

it's my son's first birthday party this weekend.  i've been crazy preparing for it.  hopefully i  can get out on the kayak soon since i've heard there are some bruiser blues out there.

until then, stay salty. XXA

I've got the Blues

i took the kayak out to the Norwalk Islands this past saturday, and finally some luck!

my son (9.5 months old) is going through some severe separation anxiety and wakes up multiple times in the middle of the night.  on saturday morning, around 1:30 AM, he woke up again, and after bringing him into the bed with us, i couldn't fall back asleep.  i was too mentally wound up with 'visualizing' catching some large stripers later that day.  about 2 hours later, i finally decided just to get up and slowly start getting ready to head out.  since i had packed most of my gear the night before, all i had to do is get changed, eat something for breakfast, and do my 'other' business.

i left the house around 4:30 AM i arrived at my launch site around 5:00, and was on the water 15 minutes later.  i had timed it perfectly since sunrise was about 5:30, and it was about two hours past high tide.  at first, i was a bit worried since there was so much fog, i couldn't see 50 feet in any direction.  it was eerie and amazingly calm.

by 5:30, i started to hear a few boats around me, which were close enough that i could hear people's conversations clearly.  i was so afraid that they wouldn't see me and i would get run over.  fortunately, i didn't see a single boat, although i kept looking over my shoulder just in case.

around 5:45, i started to see some swirls around me, and i realized i was lucky to be at the right place at the right time.  since i hadn't tied on a fly yet, i took out my spinning rod, and threw a bubble gum colored sluggo.  

wham, bam, thank you ma'am!  first cast, i felt the hit, set the hook, navigated a few head shakes and runs, and landed a blue.  not the largest i've caught, but if you've followed XXA for a bit, you'll know that i'm a firm believer in 'beggars can't be choosers'.  within the next 10 minutes, i landed a couple of more, exactly the same size and weight.

my second blue threw up a tiny baitfish and also a shrimp. until then, it never crossed my mind that blues would also eat shrimp.  (sorry for the bad picture).  the shrimp was about 1" long. 


i decided to change it up a bit and picked up the fly rod.  i tied on a pink Shannon's Streamer, thinking that it resembled the bubble gum sluggo.  i made a dozen casts, but didn't get any takes.  unfortunately, after that, the action and swirls died down.

i paddled around looking for more activity for about 1.5 hours, and then finally made the decision to head back to the first spot.  right when i arrived, the swirls started appearing again.  i landed two more blues on the sluggo.

next, i tied on a rapala skitter pop for some topwater action.  i love reeling in the lure as quickly as possible and watching the blues chase it, miss it, and keep after it until they're hooked.  it's so much fun since they'll chase the lure right up to the kayak.  i had a couple of fish where the bite was close enough to splash me with water. 

all in all, i had a terrific day!  9 blues in total, all around the same size and weight.  i'm hoping to get out again soon, so stay salty!  XXA

Pass the Salt, Please!

it's been a while since i've posted, mostly because it's not fun to write about blanking out on fishing trips.

a few weeks ago i visited a friend in Sag Harbor, and we launched a couple of kayaks into Little Peconic Bay, near his home.  conditions were perfect.  there was even a chance we could catch a cinder worm hatch since the tide, temperature, and moon were all aligned.  but alas, we ended up paddling for 4 hours without anything to show for it. 

what was most frustrating was that on one cast, i was reeling in a yozuri and was about to cast again, when a bluefish rose and almost took it.  since it was less than a rod's length away from the kayak, it actually scared me a bit and i yanked the lure out of his mouth!  argh!  let's just say that i had a few choice words to say to myself.

that next week, i flew to dallas to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law who were moving out of the country for at least a couple of years.  i was excited to go catch some carp, at LLELA and Lake Ray Roberts.  it turned out that i didn't have time to go to either.  of course, family first.

since it was less of a time commitment, i did get to go out to the Farmers Branch library, where i heard it was pretty easy to catch something.  the first time, i spotted a ton of panfish, some decent sized bass, and even a couple of carp.  all i have to say is that it is next to impossible to fly fish that pond/creek!  not only are there tons of spinach in the water which makes it hard to see anything, but even your weedless flies get caught up in everything.  plus, all the chicken wire on the banks makes it easy to tangle/catch your fly or fly line!  i did cast at the carp, but i don't think they even saw my fly.  too much vegetation everywhere! 

later that week i took my father and brother to the library again to go after those bass.  all we managed to do is catch some green sunfish.  I caught a handful on a size 8 clouser and even a caddis dry.

 

anyways, i'm hoping to get out on the kayak at some point this long weekend.  stripers, blues, whatever.  just need to catch something in the salt!

Freedom Hawk Rigging

like all of you, my new years resolution is to spend more time on the water fishing.  last year, i purchased a Freedom Hawk 12 in order to give me more access to fishing areas.  around where i live, it's either shore fishing on the LIS, or a few public freshwater ponds that are heavily fished.  all other salt or freshwater access areas are privately owned.










unfortunately, i should have waited and purchased the Freedom Hawk Pathfinder, which is probably more suited to the majority of fishing i do: inshore, saltwater fly fishing. 



the Freedom Hawk kayak is ideal for stand up sight fishing ,and perfect for any sort of flats fishing as the hull is pretty flat.  unfortunately, that means that it is dreadfully slow.  i'm a pretty novice kayaker so i'm sure my paddling technique is affecting my speed, but come on!  i used to row crew, and i have a pretty good idea of what it takes to get efficient paddling (i.e. how the paddle should enter and exit the water).  so chasing blitzing fish and birds can be somewhat frustrating because by the time i get to where i want to be, the fish and birds have moved on. i thought about getting a Hobie Pro Angler or Native Ultimate Propel 12 kayak with built in pedals, but that can provide additional headaches when it comes to fly line management.  plus, i wanted a kayak that was built for stand up fishing.

i also thought about getting a Diablo SUP, but opted for the Freedom Hawk because of the built-in, support bar.  being able to lean up against this bar for balance has been invaluable.  the LIS can get a bit choppy and there have been countless times i would have fell in the 60 degree water if it wasn't for the bar.  in retrospect, i should have purchased the 14' model instead of the 12' because i could definitely use the extra glide and stability.  

the Freedom Hawk 12 model has an attachment where you can mount a trolling motor.  that's a great feature, but the amount of maximum thrust is 30-40, which is slightly less that i would want for the LIS.  

anyways, i'm brainstorming ideas for how to rig up the kayak.  i'm thinking about getting a LineLair Fly Line Stripping Mat so i don't have to worry about my fly line getting everywhere and not take up too much room/weight on the deck.  

 

anybody have any good ideas as to how to rig my kayak?