So I finally got around to making a kayak fishing clip. The first of what I hope will be many more. Enjoy

I’ve had my kayak for over four years now and it’s been suitably modified from day one. One of the first modifications I fitted was a stern light powered from a 12v SLA battery mounted within the kayak. The majority of my fishing tends to either be at night or from day into night.

It’s a legal requirement for a kayak to be fitted with a fixed white light that provides 360 degree light and is visible for 2 miles whilst navigating/anchored at night. At that time there was very little available within the UK with regards to kayak lighting, little has changed to be honest. The Scotty light springs to mind, though to be honest its performance left a lot to be desired. I ended up fitting a detachable light designed for small boats and yachts with an uprated LED light.

A few weeks ago I read a couple of online articles where a new kayak light was mentioned, namely the VISICarbon Pro manufactured by YakAttack in the USA. Normally I’ve read any available reviews in advance of handling new tackle and equipment, though in this instance I hadn’t, hence I had no pre-conceived opinions. The unit arrived quickly and was neatly packaged, also enclosed was a RAM mounting kit.

With the unit out of the packaging it was time to have a close look. There was the light assembly, flag, product guide/instructions and a YakAttack sticker, though what really impressed me was the presence of a credit card sized customer service card with full contact details. That wasn’t something I’d really across before, nice touch.

Construction

The light assembly is a four piece affair, the lower three sections are of a similar length with the final section being the light itself.

The lowest section is similar is design to a rod butt, foam covered and approximately 1 3/4” in diameter. The design of the lower section allows the VISICarbon Pro to be fitted to most ‘rocket’ type rod holders. At the base of this particular model (CP2) is a 1.5” ball which also allows it to be mounted to a 1.5” RAM ball (Kit RM2 required).

A Scotty ready model (CP1) is also available with a Tallon flush mount. The lower section will also fit to many standard flush mount rod holders.

Above the lowest section is an elastic lanyard that serves two purposes. It allows the unit to be secured to the kayak to prevent loss should the kayak capsize or the unit be inadvertently dropped overboard. Secondly, with the unit collapsed it can be used to bind the unit together keeping it compact, it also aids stowage.
The centre two sections of the VISICarbon Pro are of carbon construction, similar to what you’d find at the lower end of a light spinning rod. The finish is good and there are a couple of graphics to compliment the appearance. The narrow diameter will keep the drag effects of wind to a minimum. The upper section is the light itself, more on that later.
What have the four sections got in common?, well, they’re all connected with an elastic shock cord that passes from the lower ‘butt’ section to the light, passing through the two middle sections.

The cord is under tension and allows the sections to either be quickly locked into place, or to be broken down into a compact size for easy storage. The principle is the same a used on many lightweight tent poles, though applying it to the light was most intuitive. When snapped together the unit is 48” long which when mounted vertically will comfortably put the light above head height.

Stowage, this is where yet again the unit proves to be most innovative. The red flag, which measures 18” x 6”, also doubles up as a stowage pouch.

There is a opening at one end, secured with Velcro, this allows the collapsed unit to be slipped inside and secured.

In this configuration the unit is very compact (14” long) and can be stored within a rear mounted crate or large centre hatch/rod pod with ease. It also fits into my dry box which is just perfect. As a result you can take the light afloat and fit it as required. It also allows the unit to be removed and stowed prior to a potentially difficult surf landing.

Getting back to the flag, attaching the flag is simplicity itself. The VISICarbon Pro uses ‘Silent Snaps’ to allow the flag to be attached to the light in seconds, it really is that simple. The ‘Silent Snap’ system comprises of two small elastic loops with a plastic tab on each. Pulling on a tab allows one end of the flag to be inserted.

The process is repeated on the other end resulting in the flag being securely attached to the light.

It’s very secure, the flag will not blow off and it’d happily survive a capsize. That being said, I’m not going to put the last statement to the test anytime soon!
That leaves the light itself.

The light unit has been custom made for the VISICarbon Pro and sports of section of reflective SOLAS tape with high visibility orange tape positioned at either side. The tapered clear lens houses the LED module. As standard it comes with a two LED module, though additional modules can be purchased to enable this to be changed to either a one or four LED module. Clearly this will vary the light output and battery life as a result. Again, this is an option I’ve not seen made available on any other kayak light.

There’s no on/off switch, operating the light requires a simple twist of the clear lens in order to make the internal contact. It’s simplicity in itself and by removing a mechanical switch it has removed a potential point of failure. The clear lens is removed by unscrewing it from the light unit.
The lens itself contains a twisted diffuser to provide enhanced 360 degree light coverage. Two O-ring seals are present at the top of the light unit, neither of which are likely to fall off whilst changing batteries/LED modules. The LED module lifts out to expose three AA batteries housed within the unit.
These are easily removed and replaced as required.

Performance
YakAttack claim a battery life of approximately 100 hours with the 2 LED module. Clearly this would be dependent on ambient temperature as I’m assuming those figures were attained at room temperature. However, even if battery life was far less than quoted it’s still very impressive and would easily last several trips before replacement was required.

The light output itself is impressive for a two LED system. It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to my current light as that utilises an 18 LED (21W equivalent) bulb, though it’s certainly very useable and will easily surpass the UK requirement of being visible for two miles. There is the facility to slide the flag over the light to reduce light output. Whilst this may not be particularly legal or advisable in open water situations, it may be prove useful when fishing close to structure to avoid spooking fish.

The light unit is claimed to be waterproof to 1000 feet. I kept it fully submerged in the sink for one hour and the initial results were encouraging with no water penetrating the light unit.

The VisiCarbon also floats, trust me, I’ve tested it!
So is it value for money?. Well it’s certainly not cheap, though I’m a big believer that you generally get what you pay for in this world, and I certainly believe that this light is no exception.
Clearly, an awful lot of thought has gone into its design. What with its collapsible mast, multi-purpose flag, multiple lighting/mounting options and excellent battery life it’s well ahead of the competition. Though that’s not all, it has full spares backup where virtually every part can be purchased individually direct from YakAttack.
Conclusion
In my opinion the VISICarbon Pro is a high quality innovative kayak light that’s well ahead of the competition. Sure it’s not cheap, though with its superb functionality and unrivalled product support it should last many years with the correct care.

I had a great day on the water with Matt, Chris, and Timmy.  One of the things I really love about fishing is that the learning experience never seems to end… I learned something new about a place that I felt I had pretty dialed in.

It took 3 hours of pushpoling the flat to figure out what these fish were up to but in the end my efforts paid off. 11 reds for the day, I sighcasted 10 of them.

This little guy was the epiphany fish… The day was looking grim, even thinking I might get skunked. I am so glad I snagged im in the face.

 

#8 of the day. A super fat 25 inch red.

 

The fatty of the day in the 32-33 inch range. He was busting a school of mullet. Hooked his big brother later which ate my plastic only a few feet in front of me, unfortunately the hook pulled. I am going to start hammering them when I set the hook from now on, I was very disappointing to have lost that last fish.

 

I also brought out the sail for the first time and man, what a difference it made. A usually fatiguing peddle turned out to be quite pleasant. I will be putting this sail to work much more often. I am really disapointed I let it collect dust for months.

Last Saturday I fished the final event of the Hard Core Kayak Anglers Tournament with a number of Anglers from the Tampa Bay area.

I figured that catching a nice snook would be the most difficult fish to catch out of the three species required to slam.  With this in mind I hit the water at 6:30 in search of a line sider.  While on the water I was fishing next to Mike Torrregrosa.  We both landed a couple of small snook and continued fishing the deep drop-offs along the shoreline.  A couple casts later Mike’s DOA paddle tail was inhaled by what appeared to be a very nice fish.  Snook made a couple of nice runs and finally showed herself, after a couple more minutes Mike had a 35.25” beauty on his measuring board to snap a few photos for the event.  This snook was the second largest he has ever caught, and to make it even better he got it on tournament day.

With his snook in the bag Mike T moved on to look for his redfish and trout.  I continued fishing and landed a total of 7 snook with the largest being 27.6 inches.  With time running out, I made the decision to head to the flats.

Once on the flats, it didn’t take long to find a redfish and a trout, unfortunately they were tiny.  I moved along  to another area where I commonly find redfish on rising tides.  Again most of the reds I found were rats, with the largest being 19.5 inches.

At this point I only had an hour and a half to get back to the weigh in and started to worry that I would not make it back in time.  With 2 miles to go to get back to the launch, I started pedaling my way back.  One of the things I love about my Hobie Revo 13 is that I can move and fish at the same time.  When I was halfway back to the launch, I hooked a 17.1 inch trout.  I snapped a quick pic and continued making my way towards the launch.

 

All of my fish for the day came via the DOA Gold and Glow paddle tail rigged on a owner inshore jighead

 

 

Thankfully I made it back to the weigh in with a few minutes to spare.

Mike T took 1^st place with a 74.25 inch slam

Chuck Statham took 2^nd place with  a 74 inch slam

I took 3^rd with a 64.2” slam.

At the end of the 6 events, Rick Taylor took the title of Hard Core Kayak Angler of the Year, I came in second place barely beating Peter Polleti who came in third.

Russ Caipen won a Aquabound Manta Ray Hybrid paddle for the largest snook

Ron Henderson won a Salty Shores BLAF shirt for the largest redfish

 

Andrew Buda won a 8 foot Wang Anchor for the largest trout

 

Many of the other guys walked away with great prizes provided by our sponsors:

Buda struck gold with a gift certificate to The Sports Authority donated by Walt at Metalfab inc.

Ron Henderson also brought some raffle skills and won an aquadream spoon pack and decals

Rick Taylor won a Procure Scent prize pack

Chuck Statham won a fish grip

HCKAC wants to thank all of its sponsors throught the series… The next series will kick off in the first quarter of the new year.   Check out the Hard Core Kayak Angler’s Club Forum for more information

 

 

“This is going to revolutionize the way people are rigging out a kayak” That was my first thought when I picked up a peace of Yak Attack’s new Gear Trac. It is a track system made from strong, but light weight 6000 series aluminum. I has a very attractive military grade hard coat anodized finish to protect it from the harsh elements to which it will be exposed .  The Gear Trac is attached to the kayak by countersunk screws that are set on 1 ¾” centers running the length of the track on both sides. The Gear Trac is offered in 4”, 8”, 12”, and 16“ lengths.

Placing the Gear Trac on your kayak will allow unlimited mounting options.  Placing Yak Attack’s screwball to the Gear Trac opens unlimited mounting options with ram mounts utilizing a ball mount.

Or by choosing the Mighty Mount system adapter, Scotty bases can be attached so that all Scotty brand mounts may be used.  Not only can they be mounted to the Gear Trac in one place, they can quickly be loosened and slid along the length of the trac allowing them to be secured to any place on the trac.

My 12” trac will be used to secure a Visi-Carbon Pro and a Panfish to mount my camera. It will allow me to mount the Visi Carbon pro light at the rear of the gear track and still give me plenty of room to mount the panfish.  The panfish will be mounted to gain a vantage behind the shoulder shot to record videos. I will also be able to mount the smaller panfish portrait to get those low to the water shots. For the kayaker that wants to record himself/herself on video,  the ability to place cameras in different places on the kayak by simply sliding it into and out of the trac is going to be a great feature.

One of the best features of the Gear Trac is it’s low profile. When the day is done and everything is removed from the kayak the less then ½” tall Gear Trac is unobtrusive and does not get in the way while loading or unloading the kayak.

To secure it to the kayak with screws is a great way to use the Gear Trac. However, it certainly lends it’s self for unlimited options.  In my case I wanted my Panfish portrait to be mounted  next to my  fish finder. This would allow me to get a great vantage point for my “grip and grin” shots while keeping me from drill more holes in my kayak. To allow more mobility with my fish finder and camera I mounted the trac on a double ball socket arm which attaches to a 1” ball mounted on my kayak. My camera and FF can now be moved together or independently to get angle I might wish.

With just a little imagination the Gear Trac and  Mighty Mount systems allow you to place equipment  on your kayak just about anywhere you want.

I made a video of the installation of the Gear Trac. I however had technical difficulties with one of the cameras.(I forgot to put a sd card in the forward facing camera) Anyway, I ended up with only one “overhead” view.

I also thought a short video to show the whole set up might be helpful.

In conclusion I think Yak Attack had hit another home run with the release of the Gear Trac. The amount mounting options are limited only to your imagination.

For a list of distributors and more information about the new Gear Trac and other products they sell can be found at
www.YakAttack.us

In the past couple months I have been doing a bit of traveling and have had other things like moving which have kept me off the water.  Well, things have finally started setting down and I have picked off where I started.  I got my hands on a few Yo-Zuri shrimp.  This lure looks amazing and can certainly catch fishermen… now comes the most important question, how does it do at catching fish?

Here are the results:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hobie To Crown Kayak Fishing’s First World Champion

 

Oceanside, California – - Four Hobie Fishing Team members will soon land on Australian shores to represent the U.S. in the first ever Hobie Kayak Fishing World Championships presented by Daiwa Australia and hosted by Hobie Australasia.  They will be part of an 18-team roster from five countries including the U.S., Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and Australia.  The invitation-only international event will be held October 27-30 in Port Macquarie along the New South Wales coast. Participants are chosen from each country based on a combination of skill and passion for Hobie fishing.

 

“We’ve seen a huge growth in kayak fishing tournaments over the past several years and we’re looking forward to expanding this enthusiasm into international competition,” stated Doug Skidmore, president of Hobie Cat. “We love the idea of embracing a common passion that overrides language and cultural barriers.”

 

The format pairs international two-person teams in a three day competition on Australia’s beautiful tidal rivers in search of the elusive golden Bream, pound for pound one of Australia’s most challenging game fish. Competitors will compete in identically rigged Hobie Mirage Pro Anglers propelled by Hobie’s patented MirageDrive system and fitted with Lowrance electronics. Live weigh-ins of the catches will take place on each of the three days of competition and a champion will be crowned based on total weight.

 

U.S. team challengers include:

Morgan Promnitz – Hobie Fishing Product Manager

Keeton Eoff –  Hobie Fishing Marketing Manager

Jackie Smith – Hobie Fishing Team Ambassador

Jose Chavez – Hobie Fishing Team Regional Member

 

The date and location for the 2012 event will be announced later this winter.

 

Since 1950, Hobie has been in the business of shaping a unique lifestyle based around fun, water, and quality products. From their headquarters in Oceanside, California, Hobie Cat Company manufactures, distributes, and markets an impressive collection of watercraft worldwide. These include an ever-expanding line of recreation and racing sailboats, pedal-driven and paddle sit-on-top recreation and fishing kayaks, inflatable kayaks, fishing boats, and float cats, plus a complementary array of parts and accessories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently had the chance to go to Stuart to visit the Yo-Zuri headquarters and do some fishing with a friend of mine,  Jimmy Nelson, the host of extreme fishing adventures.

 

After a tour of the facility we sat down to learn about Yo-Zuri’s new lure selection for 2011.

One lure that I was not familiar with is the Edge Trembler which is a subsurface twitch bait that has become one of my favorite hard  plastic baits for working deeper water.  With it I am able to work various depths of the water column thouroughly and have found it very productive in getting reaction strikes.

 

Yo-zuri has also worked a special coating on their lures which lights up the the presence of UV light.  Even though UV is not visible to the human eye, it is a spectrum visible to fish.

 

I also noted some of the other changes in crystal minnows which will be available toward the end of the year with a textured reflective coating.

 

Now with product in our hands, we hit the water.  The tides were less than optimal but we still managed to have a very productive day on the water.  Snook did not seem to be shy and we were able to convince them to come out and play

 

DOA brought together outdoor writers and captains for the 12^th annual DOA Outdoor Writers Event.  The event took place in Jensen Beach at the River Palms Fish Camp.  Representatives from Hobie Kayaks, Shimano, Costa Del Mar, Seguar, Eagle Claw, Hummminbird and other companies were there presenting their new products which will be presented during ICAST 2011.

During the first night of the event, writers were paired with the guides they would be fishing with the following morning, and tackleboxes stuffed with DOA lures were presented to each writer and guide.  Brian Nelly was our guide for the first day, we decided to target redfish, trout, and snook on the flats.

We hit the water early, just as the sun started peaking above the horizon.  The skies were overcast and gloomy.

It didn’t take long to hook up, DOA shrimp proved to be irresistible to the inhabitants of the potholes.

Jerry McBride pictured left with Shimano’s new Stradic FJ and overhauled Clarus rod

Once the tide started moving Morgan Promnitz and I decided to pay a visit to the snook living by a nearby bridge.  We rigged a DOA Shrimp on a jighead.  We casted the shrimp up current and bounced it along the bottom back to us.  We caught a variety of fish over the next hour including red grouper, gag grouper and mutton snapper.  Only one large snook was hooked but he managed to escape boatside.

As the tide slowed, the bite also slowed down.  We did one last “sweep” of the flats before working our way back to the launch

Pictured Hobie’s new horizontal rodholders which make life easy when going through mangrove tunnels and under low bridges.

Back at the River Palms Cottage we met with Jerry McBride, who would be taking us to target snook the next day.  We started again early, with the sun working its way above the horizon as we moved to the area we would be fishing.  Several snook were caught, the highlight being Keeton Oeff’s monster in the upper 40” inch range.   This monster fell victim to a DOA Terror Eyez bounced off the bottom.

 

I was recently in Stuart last week with Jimmy Nelson of Extreme Fishing Adventures TV show.  We met up with Mark Nichols of DOA lures for a morning of fishing.

We hit the water at 6am and worked our way to a marina in search of tarpon.

I wish every day started this way; on my first cast, my terror eyes was greeted by a 40lb-50lb tarpon looking for morning grub.

I had the fish on for a few minutes and things were looking good until the tarpon but she managed to shake free on a jump and throw the lure.  There were fish rolling in the area but after an boring hour of watching tarpon roll and not eat we decided to more on.

Our next location was a brackish water canal which holds smaller tarpon.  We did see some rolling fish but did not see much activity.  While working a rock pile with my terror eyez I was pleasantly surprised to catch this little guys.  I would guess he was about 4-5lbs.

We decided to call it a morning and get out of the heat.  Mark invited us to swing by DOA’s headquarters and show us where the magic happens.