Kayak fishing

[Volitan]

A friend of mine is doing a fishing diary after a request from Fisheries. He got a progress call from one of the Fisheries staff involved and got chatting. One of the many interesting things the Fisheries guy said was that the biggest fish reported were coming from kayak fishers. Not sure why but perhaps because the kayak can be pulled by the fish instead of staying put like a larger boat so maybe acts like a shock absorber.

I know that when we used to fish from my father’s boat whenever we hooked a really outsize fish we lost it pretty quickly due to being not ready, not prepared, drag setting all wrong etc. Being in a kayak might have given us a few seconds grace - enough to get our act together.

Anchor ropes didn’t help either.

Interesting to hear the comment from someone with real data, though it still wouldn’t get me yak fishing.

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Volitan

[XD351]

Maybe the Yak can into some seriously gnarly ground in silence and not spook the fish? As they are more agile than a boat it would be easier to change the angle of the line when fighting a fish - ie you hook a kingie and it is steaming away from you towards some structure , you could pump the pedals like crazy to get the pressure on the fish to  something closer to 90deg and maybe steer the fish away from danger . If you set your drag correctly the fact a kayak has a bit more give than a big boat really shouldn’t matter.

[Green Hornet]

Stealth. A kayak is far quieter than a boat in any sort of chop, there is no whirring or underwater noise from an electric motor’s prop let alone the racket from an outboard and many kayak fishermen don’t use a sounder, so no ticking sound from the transducer.

Fish don’t grow big by being dumb and I believe they learn to associate these noises with danger. Just my opinion and experience from being both a kayak and a boat fisherman.

 

[Bennyg78]

Being one of these kayak fishers without the data here's a few anecdotal opinions:

 

• I think as others have mentioned the silence plays a big part of it, although alot of areas the fish become conditioned to the noise anyway.
• Being on a Kayak vs a boat you have to be more thorough covering n area, its not like you can just motor off to the next spot on milk run. Once you have mapped out a plan you live by the sword and die by the sword, sometimes this mean covering every piece of structure in that plan which can pay dividends.
• as @XD351 mentioned I can get into oyster racks, mangrove systems and other skinny water that a boat will never get too, Even working around jetties, pontoons and wharfs theres a lot more moveability. 

Actually should compare the ave weight of the bream in some of the hobie rounds vs ABT.

• comparing the hobie Woy Woy round May 20-12 to the ABT hawkesbury round May 6-7 (top 10 boaters. The average weight of the fish for the yak fishers was 0.84 kg vs the top 10 boaters in the hawkesbury ABT round  was 0.67 kg

[dirvin21]

Stealth and access to small water are the advantage of a kayak otherwise it's way easier to fight and land big fish in a boat 

The lack of leaverage and thr ability of fish to tow a kayak make big fish difficult to land

One of my funniest fishing memories is Amy getting towed into trees by a small murray cod

[bessell1955]

I tend to agree with the stealth and aces to shallow water theory.

[slothparade]

On a kayak, your silhouette is a lot lower, shadow is usually a lot smaller and you can travel around a lot quieter. As said before, stealth is key, especially in clearer water. 

Fish are very routine, if anything is to out of the ordinary, they will be spooked. An example of this is the carp in the dam. Caught many carp over the years out of the dam, but over time they stopped taking my baits if I stood in my usual spot. When I crouched down, the baits got smashed. 

Furthermore kayaks has almost an all access pass to access different waterways, meaning they can fish a lot closer to structure and different areas.