My first catch on the kayak

[Hatetangles]

Hey guys, I took an RDO today, so what better way to spend an RDO than to go fishing in my recently purchased kayak right ?!
well, 3rd trip in and i'm on the board with this nice little bag of calamari , man what an epic session this was ! the best squid session i've ever had,
I caught 2 on the trawl, and the others conventional eging , was a bit slow to begin with , took me nearly an hour to catch the first, and then there was a period where i caught 3 in about 2 mins !!! double hook up and all, this is what fishing dreams are made of LOL , if i stayed another hr i reckon i could have bagged out, but best to save some for when i come back right ?could not wipe the smile off my face all day ! the kayak is starting to pay off hahahahh

[Sebb]

Well done. Good sizes too.

How did you find it? Not too crazy on kayak? Much fun?

[Tackleberry]

That there is a class act

[Andrews]

That's awesome to see mate,
Looks like a great feed to calamari!

[Hatetangles]

Well done. Good sizes too.

How did you find it? Not too crazy on kayak? Much fun?

Hey Sebb,Initially it took me a good 30 mins to get in my comfort zone , but after that i was feeling pretty safe & organised. Something i noticed which seems to be a bit of an issue is with the mirage drive when you change from fwd to reverse or vice versa, and i noticed this on the last time i took it out , when i changed direction a couple times it was like it was stuck in neutral, i was peddling but not going anywhere, almost felt like there was no tension or only 1 fin was functioning? So i was in fwd direction,changed to reverse, but then the issue happened, to fix it i went back to fwd again and then reverses again and then the reverse was in gear , maybe i didn't pull the gear changer to max? not sure what's happened there, will keep an eye on it next time. The other thing which made me a bit cautions was when a bit of swell was coming in , it was a bit tricky keeping the front of the kayak facing into the swell while drifting left to right , certainly would have been interesting to see what would have happened if i was anchored, but other than that it was pretty awesome, and good to rescue some snagged jigs by circling around the back of the snag and getting them freed!

[Sebb]

Play around with the mirage, usually there's a sweet spot to get thr gears engaged. Lik you might have aligned them perfectly before pulling the chord.

Yeah, learn about swells and pay attention early. Take them head on or from behind sometimes okay, but not sideways.
Same when anchored. Get the anchor up current, put right on the tip of the kayak or the rear. The current will straighten your kayak and take waves head on or rear.
This is when anchor trolley is handy.

[Tim399]

Well done. Good sizes too.

How did you find it? Not too crazy on kayak? Much fun?

Hey Sebb,Initially it took me a good 30 mins to get in my comfort zone , but after that i was feeling pretty safe & organised. Something i noticed which seems to be a bit of an issue is with the mirage drive when you change from fwd to reverse or vice versa, and i noticed this on the last time i took it out , when i changed direction a couple times it was like it was stuck in neutral, i was peddling but not going anywhere, almost felt like there was no tension or only 1 fin was functioning? So i was in fwd direction,changed to reverse, but then the issue happened, to fix it i went back to fwd again and then reverses again and then the reverse was in gear , maybe i didn't pull the gear changer to max? not sure what's happened there, will keep an eye on it next time. The other thing which made me a bit cautions was when a bit of swell was coming in , it was a bit tricky keeping the front of the kayak facing into the swell while drifting left to right , certainly would have been interesting to see what would have happened if i was anchored, but other than that it was pretty awesome, and good to rescue some snagged jigs by circling around the back of the snag and getting them freed!

If the tidal flow and wind are perpendicular to each other it can be a bit tricky to keep facing straight into the chop on a drift. If there is minimal tidal flow (most of port Phillip bay) and some wind chop, a drift chute can help keep you parallel with the direction of the chop. The drift chute can be clipped to the anchor trolley and sent to the front or the back of the kayak to keep you either facing into or away from the chop. I used to use this method a lot with my paddle yak. Since getting the Hobie I don’t use the drift chute. If it is fairly choppy I slowly jog into the direction of the chop to drift facing the chop, then push harder to gain ground and reset the drift. The key here is to never get side on to the chop, getting side on will increase the chance of going for an unplanned swim.

Well done on a cracker squid session, some good sized calamari rings there