First time kayak fishing.
 

For my 19 year old neice. She has done plenty of fresh water fishing but never from a kayak. So I take her to a local pond early yesterday morning and less than 10 minutes after we launch I look over to see she has a fish on!

I watch as she starts to reel it in but the fish has other ideas and starts a series of aerial jumps like I have never seen!
I could see it was a large smallmouth bass and was putting up a good fight and taking drag. She hollered to me that she thought the drag was to loose, and I responded that it was okay and to let him run if he wanted and that would tire him.

The fish gave her a little bit of a ride with its last burst of energy, then she brought it along side the kayak and landed it like a pro, I was so proud of her. Her bigest smallmouth bass ever, looked to be around 4 lbs. . I was so sorry I didn't have my camera(need battery). I'm sure alot of you know what I mean when I say that I got more joy from watching her accomplish this than If I had caught it myself.

Thats awesome Rmarsh! Wish you had pics but I bet you and your neice had a great time!!!:uhuh:

Great post! Thanks for sharing!

Nothing beats seeing someone get their first fish from a yak.
My first was my nephew/godson last month. Damn, the kid outfished ME.

Second was my second youngest sister. She didin't actually catch a fish, but she understood what I meant when I said pay attention to EVERY retrieve. She had a number of pickerel hit her lure right at the yak.

I bought a second kayak JUST for that reason. Now, if someone wants to come with me, there's no reason not to!

Good work.

If you haven't experienced it already yourself, you could both have a real blast fishing that same pond in the early evening into the night.
That's when the big fish tend to come out and play.
(You just have to be comfortable in relative darkness, and limited visibility.)