25 Southwest Highways & Fields
A third is time. It takes a great deal of time to prepare a boat to go into the salt water, and even more to clean up after you are done. Rinse a kayak off, hang it on the wall, and you are ready for the next time.
But the major reason that I enjoy it so much is the surge of excitement you feel as that big redfish latches onto your hook and begins to give you the ride of your life. Unlike fishing from a boat or wade fishing, catching a fish from a kayak allows the fish to actually pull you along in the water until you wear him out enough to reel him in.
One of my favorite incidents of this happened a few years ago. A friend of mine and I were fishing in an area where boats, other than airboats, cannot travel. The water is far too shallow. I had scoped this location out a couple of weeks prior to this and had seen the redfish churning at the water in an unbelievable fashion. If you have never seen this sight, it is something to behold. Redfish travel in schools. When they get hungry, they are ferocious eaters. If you get into a school of bigger redfish which are ravenous, it will look like a small storm across the top of the water. Since this is a sight often seen in only inches of water, it is best seen in a kayak.
Kayak Fishing: Sure Beats Shopping!
When we arrived at the location early this Saturday morning, the fish where back. They were so thick that they were actually running into the sides of our kayaks. We were surrounded by redfish and we were not complaining at all. I cast my bait into the water and soon one of these beauties latched onto it. I called to my friend, “I got one!” He looked at me and called back, “I believe you do,” as I took off into the sunrise. I don’t know how far that fish pulled me before it gave up that morning, but it was a challenge. We did not catch many fish before the school moved on, but we did well. I have been back to that same spot many times since and have never seen the fish as thick as that one morning.
There was another time that I went to a spot not too far from there and had a similar experience. A landowner with property adjoining the same body of water described to me a particular place off his pasture and told me to try it in the early summertime. He instructed me that if I went out just far enough, but not too far, I would likely find the redfish grazing on the small shrimp that had buried themselves in the soft sand. Too close to the bank and the sand was too hard; too far from it and the mud would be too thick. But if I could find the sweet spot, I would have a great time. This time I drove my truck to within twenty-five yards of where I launched the kayak. I rowed fifty feet out in the water and dropped my small kayak anchor. I used the anchor this time because I guessed that I had the right distance and did not want to drift one way or another. I cast the line into the water with a popping cork just feet above the bait. After popping the line a couple of times, there was a “zing.” The huge redfish had grabbed the hook and gone running. The line was spooling off of my reel. Because I was anchored, the fish did not drag me, but the rod was bent in a sharp arch. I did not know if I could wear out the fish before I ran out of line. Finally I began to win the battle as I began to be able to pull back more line than he was pulling out. When I netted him, he was a just barely legal fish. I put my trophy on the stringer while my adrenalin was still flowing.