New to everything.

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and thinking about getting into kayak fishing. I have no fishing gear, no kayak, and not even a fishing license.

I'm originally from the Southeast, and grew up around a large man-made lake. I fished for bass, crappy, bream, catfish and when nothing else was biting, carp. I also have a little experience fly fishing mountain streams for trout.

Been away from the sport, but recently got the bug again. I live in Seattle and there's just to much opportunity around to not fish.  I'm also interested in learning to crab.

Since living here I've become addicted to salmon and crab, so I'm mainly interest in fishing those. I only live about a mile from Green Lake, so may try to do a little trout fishing there.

I'm trying to learn a bit about clothing also, I've never fished cold waters.

Which large man made lake?   There are several of us that are originally from the south east

My dad owned several house boats over the years (along with some ski boats). The first one was on Lake Hartwell. Later he moved to Lake Keowee, where I did most of my fishing. Our boats were moored at a marina in Seneca. We lived in Greenville, SC but we spent every weekend on the house boat, even in the winter months. The last house boat my dad owned was a 40 foot Gibson house boat.

I have many fond memories growing up around that marina, fishing the docks. We'd fish the fuel dock in the evenings because the lights would draw the bugs, and the crappy would be on a feeding frenzy. You could pull them as fast as you could bait your hook and throw it in the water.

The lake was relatively new when we were there. I'm an old guy, this was in the seventies.

Howdy,

I grew up sailing and fishing both those lakes, mostly Hartwell. I was raised in Greenville, SC. Welcome to the beautiful PacNW!

Green Lake's got a healthy trout and warmwater species population in there. Might be a nice place to start and get back into the swing of things.

I've actually been in Seattle about 10 years, prior to that Dallas, Portland, OR, Atlanta, and Greenville, SC.

My family moved around quite a bit during the dot com era. I came to Seattle to work for Amazon. I no longer work there, but it didn't take us long to fall in love with Seattle. Definitely the most incredible city I have ever lived in or visited.

I'm a little embarrassed it took me this long to start fishing, but the last decade was spent raising children. Now my kids are 18, 16, 14, so teens no longer want to hang with dad.

I'm a Charleston native.   If you haven't gotten into a boat yet,  check the classifieds

Ahh, well then welcome to the world of fishing in the PacNW. In my admittedly limited (one year, though I think i've made the most of it), i've learned there's really no limit on the type or intensity of kayak fishing you want to do here, from inland trout to offshore halibut. Even having spent many summers fishing the lowcountry coast, I've got to say we've got it as good or better than almost anywhere else in the country.

If you're interested in salmon from the kayak, we're in the midst of the coho run in the sound. We've been doing alright trolling pretty close to shore. I don't have a peddle kayak (although I wish I did), but my tarpon 140 gets the job done just fine.

Crab's closed here, but it's excellent crabbing when in season. Again, kayaking out and dropping pots close to shore (30-40 feet of water) in a cheap trap left for at least a few hours has pulled in pretty consistent limits.

Thanks to all for the warm welcome. Any advice on clothing? Do I need a dry suit?

Dress for the possibility that you'll end up in the water, which is always cold in the sound, strait, ocean. Whether it's dry suit, dry top/dry pants, wetsuit, waders/dry-top, depends on what you want to spend, what you feel comfortable in, how safety-conscious you want to be, etc... I'm sure this topic's been explored on this site by ppl more knowledgeable than me. That said, I, and my wallet, have been happy with my dry top/dry pants combo.

I wear a wet suit mine was $300 or so plus $40 for boots you can get deferent thickness to acomidate your  comfort level and most surf shop will let you rent one for the day. I rented one from seaside surf shop and the $20 rental they applied to my new suits cost.