Whats the best way to carry your catch in a typical SOT kayak?
The scenario is an optomistic bag limit of 5 - 10lb Snapper & perhaps a half dozen Gurnard or a legal size Kingi for good measure.
My kayak is a Perception Swing and I don't like to open the hatches when out in the open sea - unpredictable wild Taranaki West Coast.
1. Straight into the tankwell threaded on a stringer or game clip?
2. Use a large wine cooler chilly bag strapped behind seat or in tankwell?
3. Large kayak dry bag strapped into tankwell?
4. Diver's catch bag strapped into tankwell?
5. Plastic chilly bin or fish bin with lid behind seat or strapped in tankwell?
The problem I forsee is fitting anything large enough into the irregular shape of most tankwells and also accessing it easily from the seat. No.1 and No.4 have the inherent danger of producing a berley trail via the scupper holes for attracting large bitey things and provides no cooling or protection from the sun.
I have been using a chilly bag but find the zips are not very robust and are corroding very fast. A Rubbermaid chilly bin fits perfectly into the front square section of my tankwell, but has no capacity - only good for ice, bait & burley.
What method do you guys use, or suggest based on your experience & collective wisdom
My... My... My... arent you in for a treat,
My good buddy Limitless has designed an awesome way to side step all those problems.
Best explained by:
You fasten a spearo style fish stringer to the yak at a point in the tank well. Then he's designed a cover made out of some space age material that covers the tank well and keeps the fish cool and repels the sunlight.
As for scupper holes if you're paranoid about big bitey things you pop in some scupper stoppers.
Here's a pic of it:
Thats a great example HF.
I may expand on this idea by getting Penguin Direct ( http://www.penguindirect.co.nz/ ) to custom make me one of their insulated catch bags shaped to suit the tankwell and with hold down straps around the perimeter. A heavy duty plastic zip or velcro fastened flap at the front end should complete the solution.
A fish stringer anchored inside the bag should allow easy loading of fish into the bag from the kayak seat without requiring too many contortions.
If the insulating quality of these bags is as good as claimed I will be able to put the fish straight onto ice - fresh as!!!
Any more good ideas, fella's?
Looks very interesting,
I'd like to see the end result!
I'm familiar with their Ice Chests they seem to be the best thing since the wheel.
Hi DogFish,
as I've discovered when dealing with big fish, especially snaps and kings, make sure the bag opening is HUGE. I tried a bag arrangement and gave up for two reasons:
1. getting heavy fish into a bag opening is easier said than done when conditions are sloppy. You also tend to take on a lot of water at the same time and the yak bogs down. I then tried a full mesh bottom, but that defeated the purpose of the bag anyway.
2. a bag arrangement makes it very difficult to get big snaps to lay with their heads forward (spines, scales, etc). If the snapper face the stern then the total number of fish that will fit gets restricted as their heads lay in the skinny end. This also distributes the total weight too far to the stern. A cover allows you to slide the fish over the side of the well and spin or flip them on the edge to make sure they lay correctly.
I regularly return with up to 35kg of snapper and the odd king up to 30kg. So far this year I've had a grand total of 5 trips where I've NOT boated at least one 9.5kg snap or bigger. For this reason weight distrubution and how the fish lay into the well are critical for me. I've found that if you insulate the fish from direct sunlight i.e. a cover, an insulated bag arrangement isn't worth the cost or hassel.
Fish stringer always essential to both retain the catch and assist in getting it into the well.
Those are impressive stats.
What he's also not telling you is in reality he's earned a few nicknames by the guys cause he catches most of the fish, and makes everyone else tote what he cant carry.
His average stats are closer to 12lbs per fish. But most of the time he's pulling up the 15 to 20 pounder with the occosional 25+. NO LIE HE HAS PICS and CLUB TROPHIES!
A few weeks back he took this bloke Andrew out "Andrew has no fishfinder on his yak" and just as they pull up to Spot X, Steve says, "Andrew drop your bait here"
About a minute after dropping the bait Andrew is being towed away in a blood curdling scream of impending death and murder, "HELP ME STEVE-O" by what turned out to be a 9.8 kilo snapper. Andrews fish fish over 20 pounds!
One more reason I call him "Master", and he says "The Possibilities are LIMITLESS"
Steve laughed himself so hard his heart just about stopped that trip.
The trouble with sacks (and I've tried them) is that the fish spines get stuck in them and its bloody hard to manouvre the sack in an out of the tankwell once you've got it loaded with a few fish.
I've found the method that Limitless uses (as per his post above) works best although I've yet to try my insulated bag idea or fit a cover as he has. At the moment I just place a wet sack over them in the tankwell.
The fish stringer arrangement works brilliantly for easy handling of the fish. Once alongside, I gaff the fish, iki spike it (expect to get wet if it's a green kingi or large kahawai), remove the hook, thread on the stringer and just flick it down the line and into the tankwell - easy as :)
I told ya so!
When you have the info from someone who has spent over 1000 hrs a year on the water getting the technique right, the info might be worth listening to.
Cheers
Is that a picture of your Yak Hellfish??????????
Woody
No that is a picture of Limitless' Kayak.
This one is mine:
Tasman and Golden Bay snapper still running hot We are not far away from daylight... Read More >
Variety is the spice of life On one recent trip, the plan was to spend a... Read More >
Fish where the fish are! Catching fish or just going fishing? I tackle this issue... Read More >
Thoughtful tactics required for better fish Over the course of each year the fishing varies,... Read More >