Nice outcome! Way to be.
Thanks. I really like the bottom fishing. Reminded me a lot of jigging ice fishing.
So as I had mentioned, I fished in my first ever fishing tournament this weekend. For whatever reason, I ended up picking a kayak only tournament, in a body of water that I've never fished, and targeted some species that I have never fished for. The weekend started off on Friday, when my new fish finder arrived unexpectedly, but the battery and RAM mount did not. Therefore, I ended up stopping at Cabelas Friday night on the drive down to the Cape to get a battery and mount.After a couple of hours of sleep, we arrived in Fairhaven Saturday morning around 5am to birds busting to tiny peanut bunker. The schoolies and blues were following but they were keyed in on really small bait so catching them was difficult. I got a decent blue and 2 schoolies during the first hour. Seemed like the fish either moved out deeper or were only hitting tiny bait so we switched to bottom fishing. I ended up landing countless black sea bass and sea robins, some of which were kept for dinner. The biggest sea bass was about 19 inches and prob 4-5lbs. We were off the water around noon so we could get back to setup my fish finder and do some work on my rudder.Six hours of sleep and we were back in Fairhaven by 4:30 for a 5am start. We took a similar approach to the practice round but the fish weren't in the same place. We tried tube/worm rigs and eels in the morning to no avail. We switched to bottom fishing quickly. I caught a good sea robin right away that went on the stringer. It ended up being 2.22lbs and won the sea robin category. I got one keeper fluke and a few short sea bass before we moved to deeper water. In the deeper water I kept an eel dangling behind me while I jigged. I ended up catching a bluefish on the eel which also ended up being the biggest in the category (3.7lbs). I only caught some short sea bass tourney day. My buddy limited out on fluke and sea bass but none were leader board worthy. I also caught 2 dogfish on the eel, one was close to 4 feet long and put up a heck of a fight. I had never caught one and thought I had a monster striper. However, they are a pain in the butt to deal with in a yak. The final weigh in was at 3:30 and the blue got me second place overall. It went striper (none caught), fluke, blue, sea bass and then sea robin for prizes. I walked away with a malone kayak cart, a calcutta soft side fish keeper and a bag filled with assorted lures. The grand prize of a tandem Feel Free kayak went to team Hobie (the rich get richer) for an almost 8lb doormat of a fluke.
Peddle kayaks make jigging out of the yak so much easier. Being able to peddle into the current to stay in place or control drift speed makes a huge difference. Be sure to clean the area where your peddle arms enter the housing real well. Ive heard nightmares of those bearings seizing over the winter due to not being stainless.. Had a buddys drive fail due to that while out on the water. You DO NOT want to have to paddle that Slayer against the tide..
congrats on a successful tournament, in spite of the road blocks that were thrown your way!
TaxID, as long as the wind is less than 10mph you should be fine in your Hobie in Buzzards Bay. It was about 10-15 mph on Sunday and I was never nervous. The only thing to watch out for is where there are rips due to a tide change and quick change in depth. They typically fish well but create some weird waves.
And you sir now have the same addiction that I do. Someone here finally gets it! LOL You could not have phrased that any better. Congrats on your winnings! Here is the pick from my trip on saturday, pretty similar.