Afloat again!

Well, it's certainly been a year for mixing it up, new methods new techniques, some old style fishing and a return to the water, on, not in! I'm talking about a return to kayak fishing. The new HRF and LRF techniques I have been using this year lend themselves very well to fishing from a plastic tub, access from the shore to prime ground for Bass and Wrasse and all the other species available on these methods is sometimes difficult if not frustratingly impossible. We tried the kayak fishing last year but with normal spinning and fly fishing techniques, but I personally didn't get on with it, and so I sold my kayak. Since using the new methods however, I realised just how much more effective they could be if I were to get afloat again, and so I began to reconsider. The truth was that the one I bought last year was totally unsuitable for the job. Too big for me personally to handle, both on and off the water and totally the wrong shape with very limited room making it very uncomfortable to spend long periods in. What I needed was a smaller lighter craft, built specifically for fishing, and easy for me to handle.
I began to research and looked at all the usual suspects including Ocean Kayak, and Wilderness kayaks. I paid careful attention to the details and assessed which had the best features to suit my needs. The Tarpon range by Wilderness seemed to be exactly what I needed, and the smallest craft in the range at 10 feet seemed ideal. After a lot more looking around and some emails and phone calls I eventually found and ex demo model at a very good price...

The day after I collected it from the dealer my friends and I went out to try our luck at our favoured spot, but, due to the conditions it was apparent that we would not be able to fish so we took to some sheltered inshore estuary water to just have a paddle and get used to the kayaks once again, ( my other mate had just bought himself a kayak too ). We spent a nice couple of hours paddling around the estuary looking at the wildlife and dodging the small sailing craft whizzing backwards and forwards across the water!
Suitably re aquainted with the vessels the next day came with better and calmer conditions with the sea being a lot more settled so we were able to take to the water at our venue of choice.
Wrasse were the target over some very rough and broken bouldery ground. My friend had managed a good session there the weekend before so we hoped for more of the same but it seemed the fish were in contrary mood and bites were infrequent and difficult to hit. trying different lures and rigs I eventually managed to connect with a Wrasse, the only one of the evening and very welcome it was too! Only a small fish but proof and justification that getting afloat could and will pay dividends when the fish are in a feeding mood. Hopefully there is more to come and we shall have access now to the prime ground and be able to capitalise on our opportunities. I am very pleased so far with the Tarpon, it is everything I wanted, light, easy to manouvre and very comfortable thanks to the seating system, and it has lots of storage options and room to work from as a fishing platform.