Sunshine – clear blue sky -
The last couple of weeks have been dreary as far as weather goes I kept looking for a fun day to launch my new fishing kayak, but the days have been very cold, very windy, or drizzle.
Today it is warm at 65 in the shade, and much warmer in the Sun. There is a stiff wind, but warm, so I made my maiden voyage in the new boat. It needs a name, but I am not there yet. A good name for a fishing boat would be 'OSPREY' or “FISH HAWK' but everybody does that. It would be like calling your dog 'SPOT' which is an excellent name but ---
I am thinking
'CORMORANT ' as I have seen them here, and they are great fishermen.
The new boat is very stable, but not as fast as my 'sit inside' kayak. It sits higher and catches a lot more wind. Being an old runner, I knew to head out into the wind so later it will help you get home.
When you are tired and cold, nothing is worse than a wind in your face, and nothing is better than one at your back.
Right off I had a problem. My fish finder would not power up. It worked fine in the house. I rigged up a battery pack of 10 AA batteries to run it as weight and space are a big deal on a kayak. Finding a pack that holds ten was hard. You can get an 8 pack at Radio Shack, and that worked, but to get a full 12 volts you need ten AA as the rechargeable only do 1.2 volts.
Research on the web showed me that these movie cams the guys are mounting to their heads, bikes, and boards, use 10 AA. I got one on ebay for almost nothing.
It is really a lot of work hooking a “permanent” fish finder to shoot sonar through the hull. I did an excellent job on mine. I don't need it to find fish, just to tell me the depth and show me the bottom. I guess I don't need that, but it is fun and I need special things or this will just be another kayak like everyone has.
If I have to rip out the transducer, I am going to be really sad as it was a “wife” to put in. (my bride does not allow me to say bitch).
If I have to replace the fish finder, It will be less work but more $$. My job now is to find out if the main unit or the transducer went north on me, and replace or repair whichever. I hate that as I believed it all to be perfect.
I still got in nearly three hours of trolling. Since I am the motor, I am learning a lot about how to paddle efficiently. The boat was actually very comfortable. My bride's kayak is good, but this one is much more comfortable for a guy as big as me. Instead of sitting below, it is more like paddling as you sit on a deluxe floating log. It is more work, but as I get stronger, and learn to leave it docked on windy days and choose the pontoon, I think this will be a lot of fun. It will be really good to paddle to a spot and fish, and move on like the BassPros do, but I have to admit, I am more into troll than cast or still fish. You get to see more if you troll, and even if you don't catch a fish, you might see an interesting bird that could make your whole week.
Sitting here on the deck, I can feel I need to start hitting the bow-flex everyday again to gain some strength. I am Ok, but every new endeavor uses different muscle, or uses them in different ways or at a different ratio to other muscles. You would think you would need to build the pulling muscles, but I discovered today in the wind that if I used the long paddle as a lever and pushed, it worked much better. I suspect that people already figured that out before me, so my next web work will be to explore how to paddle. I suspect a boxer would have the right muscle ratio to be be an excellent kayak paddler. I have a heavy bag, and I am going back to hitting it in a big way as the Strippers will be here in 3 months.
I catch my share of those big fish, but imagine sitting on a small kayak and hooking a 10-50 pound Bass..
WOW !!!!
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