Finally gave kayak fishing a try a few weeks ago (Sept 5th when the weather was still hot and the water was extremely warm). I've been meaning to try this for a while and got a bunch of folks together (5 total) who also wanted to give it a try. Belle Isle Kayak is in Winthrop which is nearly a perfect place to go if you want to fish near Boston...and if you get caught out at night, the lights of the city are enough for you to get home safely. And best part of all for folks thinking about kayak fishing is this is the only fishing tour I know of in the area that has Hobies...two Outbacks are available (there's also an Adventure, but it's not for beginners because it's less stable); the rest are Ocean Prowlers which are very popular paddle yaks for fishing.
Hit the water at around 4pm at Winthrop Beach and yakked a total of 8 miles. Rick Buss (the owner) and Tomo were our guides. We got used to how the kayaks handled for a while before being handed rods. We got rods and were set up for trolling tube-n-worms tipped w/ seaworms and practiced that for a while.
We then got serious and trolled over rocks while enjoying the scenery (one of the guys noticed bikinis on the beach because it was such a warm day, but I couldn't see after an old guy mooned everyone when his shorts fell off, then turned around and showed off his man boobs
).
Nothing exciting happened during the day...the fish and bait seemed to have disappeared and Rick didn't mark much of anything on his fishfinder which was weird because they had just had a good yak fishing contest the day before. After enjoying a beautiful sunset with purple skies reflected on the water and watching planes land, dusk finally came and we picked up a few fish which didn't seem to show up until dark fell and the ocean cooled a bit.
One person got cut off at the spinner by a bluefish and lost a tube rig. One person caught a keeper and short. One person who hadn't fished in nearly 25yrs beat everyone with two keepers and one short; the short was caught 30sec after he had put the tube back in the water! I got skunked despite being near this lucky person most of the night, though I did get to help land the 2nd keeper and measured it and the other person's keeper w/ my lipper. The last person also got skunked.
We had to head back or we might have had better luck in the dark, but it was the first trip for all of us and Rick thought it was safer to try landing with light. By the time we got back, it had dark already and we had to run headlights most of the way back (my brother and I both brought headlights just in case). The waves picked up a bit while we were gone and I got a nice wave over my shoulders during the landing (I had stayed dry up to that point after the launch)...glad I stuffed my electronics into a pelican case or they'd be pretty dead.
Total yakking distance: 8 miles.
On the kayak front, the Ocean Prowlers were faster than the Outbacks, probably because of the narrower hulls and the Outbacks didn't have the turbo fins. Rick and Tomo's Adventure and Revo Hobies (probably w/ turbo fins) could literally run circles around the Outbacks even fully loaded w/ fishing crates and gear.
The Hobies were horribly heavy (much more so than the Ocean Prowler) to haul up/down the beach's pebble lined path. I fell while helping haul a Hobie up on the wet pebbles and had a black and blue palm for a few days. The Hobie roller wheel accessory definitely would have helped and would be a mandatory accessory if you launch by yourself.
All in all, fun trip, fun exercise, great sunset, great folks to have fun with and I'm hoping to get out with Rick again for the fall run if the fish come back after hurricane Earl . Kayaking pants/drytop or a wetsuit probably wouldn't be a bad idea at this point because the water dropped so much (it was around 68F when we went and Slappy said it's down to 54F now). If you want to try kayak fishing in a Hobie, definitely hit up Rick for a tour...
Photos:
- guy who caught the most fish fighting his first keeper
- me yakking around behind Rick
- tail portion of one of the keepers cooked cantonese style w/ ginger/scallions (for the record, this does *not* work well...the fish just isn't smooth enough or delicate enough in flavor for this technique and I definitely didn't overcook the fish...this is the 2nd time I've tried it hoping I made a mistake the 1st time)
p.s., forgot my camera's memory card so I only had 10 shots on the camera's internal memory...can't believe I did that
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