New member intro and 1st report

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd introduce myself.  A month ago I sold my canoe and bought my first kayak, a used 13' Perception Search.  I have a 19' power boat and fish a lot, but I've never kayaked before, so I am learning on small lakes.  The family and I went to Vernonia Pond last weekend to catch some stocker trout.  They were on shore, and I was on the kayak trying to figure out how to troll effectively.  The trolling thing wasn't working (shallow lake with lots of weeds), so I anchored up against some cattails and started casting a small gold Kastmaster.

The family was getting skunked plunking bait from shore, and I had a couple of bites that didn't stick.  Then, I got a bite that stuck.  Much to my surprise, it also pulled back.  Hard!  I was using a tiny trout rod with 4lb mono, so I let this fish do whatever it wanted.  Eventually, I got it near the kayak.  It was a steelhead.  I didn't have a net, so I tried tailing it a couple of times.  All that did was piss it off and get me splashed for my effort.  So, I fought the fish with one hand while pulling anchor and paddling to shore with the other hand.  I was wearing waders, so I hopped off near shore and got the fish between me and the bank so I could herd it up on the dirt.  I hope no one was videoing it because I'm sure it was quite entertaining.

Apparently, the hatchery puts excess returning steelhead into this small lake.  It was 27" and 7 lbs.  It was a little colored up, but it smoked great.  Next time, I'll bring a net!

Nice Report, What lake?

what a nice way to start yak fishin!! 

Vernonia Pond

First yak trip, to a pond, and land a steelhead.  The Yak Spirit doth shine on thee...

Nice first yak fish, if that don't hook ya, nothin will!

welcome to the cure...

27" steelhead on a little trout rod? That must have been a blast! Got any photos of the fish and/or yak?

Nice intro. EMF!  That's one heck of an initiation into kayak fishing. 

Hope to hear many more stories like it from you as the summer progresses.

-Spot-

Great story, EMF. A similar thing happened to me a few years back. I hooked a planted steelhead in a lake. I had a net. A measly folding C&R trout net. The lake steely was 27"+ and a fat 10 lbs. (The WDFW plants excess steelhead smolts in this lake, and this one probably grew up in the lake, hence it being so fat. I identified it as a steelhead by the fin clipping pattern, but it was a really nice big rainbow trout, anyway).
 I got the head end of the fish in the net, grabbed the tail, and slung it on board. This bent the net handle, but I didn't care!  I was using my 6 wt fly rod with only 5 lb test tippet and #10 leech imitation with a barbless hook. Took me 20 minutes to land the thing right in front of a good audience of power-bait plunkers who were getting 13"ers! I just love it when that happens!