Just fell in love

My name is Nate and I love to fish and hunt. Please don't mock me or laugh to much when I tell you what I have.

My wife bought a 200 dollar sot from Fred Meyer last year and I fell in love with using it. Then a friend of ours had the exact same model sitting in her shop for several years so gave it to us. I have wanted to try fishing with it almost since she bought it but because of work, school, and some military training I was doing, never had the chance until Labor Day weekend. We went to the family lake house in Shelton where my oldest boy and I had a blast using it to catch small bass.

This past Tues (9/11), instead of dwelling on the past, I decided to try an impromptu trip off Golden Gardens (we live in North Ballard for all you Ballard/Crown Hill folks). So I figured out a simple mooching rig, got myself some herring from freddies, and launched from the beach.

When I was about 200 or so yards off shore (of course it might have been 150 or 350) I dropped my line and went about 20 or so pulls on my line, which ended up being about 80 feet out and with the angle of the line and tide about 50 feet down. I then just waited. Paddled a little, waited, and then about 20 minutes into the waiting. Tap Tap tap tap tap Tap TAP. Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Fish on. It surfaced almost immediately, jumped, threw the hook in the mouth, caught the bottom hook in the side. I was able to finally bring it to the boat and because I didn't actually see hook in mouth I set it free. In the process of using my pliers to unhook the fish, I managed to drop the only knife I had on me into the water. Almost lost my paddle, wondered why I hadn't thought about bringing a net--not that I had any place to actually secure the net I have--wished I had a second knife to do a cut-plug on the herring, was glad I didn't have a camera because I would have likely dropped that as well, and basically overall absolutely fell in love with kayak fishing.

My kayak is hardly a fishing kayak, don't have the money to get one, have to use the materials on hand, and will love every minute of it.

I have been scouring the board over the last three days looking for info and absorbing as much as possible.

I will be getting off work at 0730 this morning (Friday 14th) to try for a a couple of hours. If you see me out there, wave and be nice to a complete kayaking neophyte.

Tight Lines.
Nate

Falling in love is a beautiful thing!   

Welcome to the madness!

Love reading stories like this!  Thanks for sharing!

Welcome to the site Nate and thanks for the great intro.  The people at this site wouldn't care if you were fishing a SOT chunk of Styrofoam.  Your yak can be outfitted to be a fishing machine.  Keep us posted on your exploits and yak modifications.

What species of fish did you let go due to foul hooking?

I had to see what a $200 Freddie's kayak looked like for myself. It's for real! Nate just lost a coho when I pulled up to him, and although he was a bit weary from being up all night working he was determined to land a fish.  I have no doubt he'll do it.

Heh nice pic yaktrap.

Welcome Nate!

Great story and great saltwater break-in experience! Go get em!

I have seen a guy use one of those with great success at Pacific City, Oregon fishing for rockfish.

Thanks for the welcome. It was great meeting you Yaktrap. I showed my Queen of the Sea the photo you took of me and she just laughed then wondered how cool your kayak was compared to mine.

Fishpimp-it is all about Silvers right now.

I managed three more very solid take downs. Had one in the boat that apparently didn't like the ride I was offering. It was utter chaos. Silver flopping, me trying to not to lose my rod, trying to control the fish, trying not to fall out because I was actually laughing with pure joy, trying to grab my 1.5 foot piece of 2x2 pine that I was going to use as a fish bonker, all while the fish was still hook. It takes one more flop and out the yak it goes. Still hooked. I start playing it again, then comes unbutton about two inches off the nose of the boat. Like I said, Poseidon got an f-bomb on that one. The folks in the boat about 30 yards away watched the whole thing and felt bad for me. Then started talking about it being pretty cool to fish in kayaks. They were a couple of old timers that appeared to be wishing they were young enough to try kayak fishing.

While playing this particular fish I noticed one and possibly a second silver swimming right along with the hooked fish. This was probably about four to six feet down so wasn't quite sure about the second fish. But I thought it was extremely cool seeing multiple fish while attempting to land the fish on the line.

It seems like I am doing it mostly right, but with at least four solid hook ups and two long distance releases, my question is two-fold:

What rod--length and action--suggestions would you all have (not that I have any money to buy them)?

I am using 1/0 gamakatsu octopus hooks, suggestions? Because of the way they are coming unhooked, should I go with a 2/0 or stick with what I am using?

Nate

You should move up to a 3/0 or even 4/0 hook. I like a 9' rod but went down to my 7' today and will try my 4' barbie rod tomorrow (just for kicks). There's so many Coho out there right now you could use kite string wound around an old can and get it done. Just get a hook in front of them. This weekend is shaping up to be All Time.

Silvers are notorious for throwing the hook----it is not unusual to hook 10 and land 3.  They have a sort of tender mouth, and they do incredible gymnastics to get unhookd--as you found!!!

Dont forget we have gap size restrictions on our hooks where you are fishing, too..  not sure what the gap is on a 4/0 but if am readign the regs correctly 3/4 inch max on the hook gap.

always wondered about those yaks at freddies.. nice to know you can use them on the sound in fair conditions.

Nate, welcome. You'll find a great bunch of helpful people here, as you're finding out already.

Funny!
Your post was a  hoot. My comment is that the 'workspace' in these little 'yaks is very limited.....
everything is happening at once and all at the same place; sometimes at the same time.
Thats certainly part of the fun. Loved your story.

Naturally, people will tell you to tether everything so that you can lose nothing. Which is generally good advice.....but of course that just means you have retractor or tether or leash lines everywhere and always in the way. More madness. Can't wait to get back out this week!!!