My July!!!

Well this is going to be a catch up post.  I realize that I have not kept this thing up to date.  So what I am going to do is a post of the last month.  So here is my July.

This had to be my best month of fishing ever.  Well other than first week of trout season every year, when I get to spend a bunch of time fishing with my family up in Pennsylvania.  I am going to just post up this month’s pictures throughout the post.  Some will be corresponding to what I am talking about and some will not.

The beginning of July marked my 6^th week of owning a kayak and kayak fishing.  This last month I have learned so much it is unreal.  I actually wasn’t able to really get on the water till around the 10^th of July. This was the beginning of the Pirates of Lynnhaven flounder tournament. I really enjoy flounder fishing from the kayak.  Before owning the kayak actually that is primarily all I fished for.  So it was very easy to take my floundering skills to the kayak.  I ended fishing a lot for the tournament.  It was a tough week of fishing, but I was the only one that had caught 3 keepers for the 3 fish weigh-in.  Which means I got to stand tall and have my moment of being the winner of the tourney.  For winning I received a 10 hour fishing charter with Capt. Blake Hayden.

For my girlfriend Brittany’s birthday this year I decided that she needed to become a fishergirl. I picked her up a rod, reel, tackle box and some assorted lures.  The first time I took her out she ended up catching 2 keeper flounder.  Then on the second trip she caught another keeper flounder.  Now I am not taking her anymore, lol…  Britt is a fishing machine and it makes me very proud!

I have gotten to fish with a bunch of people this last month and I want to thank all of you for the great company.   Especially I would like to thank Tony, Joe and Jim.   It makes it a lot easier to wake up after the alarm goes off (instead of turning off and rolling back over) knowing I will be fishing with some good friends.  On that note, Thom, you really need to fix your back bro, Rob and Dave, I am still looking forward to getting to fish with you guys.  I also wanna thank Matt for taking me out cheating on a boat and showing me how “he” can catch multiple sheepies! 

I will try my hardest to keep this more up to date.  Till next time, hope you enjoy the pics!!

Jarred

5/20 HRBT

Well I finally got a chance to put together my report from Friday night.  The weather cleared up nice and the wind dropped to 4mph so I decided to hit up the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel for the first time.  I wanted to fish the Norflok side so I put my yak in at Willoughby Bay boat ramp.  Its a free boat ramp which is awesome.  When I got to the ramp there was another person gettin' his yak all rigged up.  He ended up waiting for me so we could paddle out to the bridge together.  We ended up fishing together most of the night.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous.  We started paddling out at 7:30 pm. 

Started fishing close to the shore and the croaker were eatin up my gulps.

I also had a few flounder on but they all came off before getting them into the boat.  We then trolled close to the norfolk side island.  My main mission here was to get a striper and get more comfortable in the yak.  Plus if I could I wanted to Learn to spot them in the light line. 

Once it got dark it was pretty much constant bluefish.  I did however get to see some stripers.  I did get one hooked up but it instantly ran for the pilon and broke me off.  So now this week I am going to try to find a MH rod for fishing the light line.  It is definately not a spot for light rods and 8lb test line.

One of the many blues,  I wasn't keeping any blues though.  Size of them ranged from 10 inches up to prolly 22 inches.

I decided to head back in at 12:15am.  I never really saw a lot of stripers but did see some paired up. 
It was my longest trip as of yet and when i finally got back to the ramp and stood up it took 10 mins to get the blood moving again, hehe.  There were prolly 7 of us all packing up our stuff at the same time.  The Kayak fishing community is fantastic...  A few of us stood there til about 2am just shootin the breeze and tellin' fishin lies...  Hope to get to fish with some of you guys again!  I have off Monday to thursday this week so expect some more reports.   Have a good week everyone.

Jarred

5/18 Rudee Inlet

Today was my first time taking the yak out in the saltwater.   I put in at Owls Creek in Va. Beach, and was going to go fish right where the ocean comes into the inlet.  I made it halfway there when I realized that I left my 'Word of the Month' paper back in my other crate in the car.  The 'word of the month is the piece of paper that you guys see in my pictures with fish sometimes.  It is for the fishing club that I am in called Pirates of Lynnhaven.  The piece of paper is for the Angler of the Year Tournament that I am participating in.

Anyway, so I get back to the ramp and get the paper then am on my way again. While out at the mouth of the inlet I catch three of these little guys.

I stay out there for about an hour and a half then I decide to go back in the inlet.  It is now that I have realized that I have bought the yak for the wrong reason.  All along I was wanting a kayak to go fishing.  But it is not about the fishing at all.  I got to see so much wildlife today it was insane.  Things I never got to see up close as a shore fisherman.

I had just as much fun paddling around seeing how close I could get to birds, that I wasn't thinking about fishing.  heheh.  The only thing that sucks is the nice fingerprint on the lens. And how white the pictures got.
That is all for now.  I won't be able to get out tomorrow but hopefully friday I have another post. 

Jarred

5/17 New Camera and Fish!

Other than creating this site over the last couple of days I have been doing all kinds of research on waterproof cameras.   You have no idea how unnerving it was yesterday to have to take my HTC Evo out of my dry box and take pictures while sitting out in the middle of a lake. 

I decided to go and check the Navy Exchange.  A lot of camera companies put together military appreciation packages on their phones.  I was planning on going and picking up a Fuji Finepix x10.  But they had a really good camera for a really good deal, and it was one of the military appreciation packages too!  I ended up buying an Olympus Tough 310.  With it came a PFD leash, SD card and nice case.  Plus it was the display model so I got an extra 10% off.  I pretty much stole the thing for $120.

After dinner was over I decided that I needed to make sure that the camera worked so me and my girlfriend decided to go try for some flounder.  This was fishing from shore.  But a cool thing happened tonight.  She said that she is really interested in getting a fishing license as well.  So I am almost sure that I will have her in a yak by next year...

The first spot we went was a bunch of these.

How a croaker gets a 4inch swimming mullet in its mouth I will never know.  We then hit up a second spot and I picked up a flounder.

One was all I got, one was all I needed.  I got to spend some time with my new fishin partner and I got to try the new camera.  Now I have to get ready for bed cuz I think I am going to try Rudee Inlet in the morning by myself for some blues.  I saw a post by a buddy of mine that is a recipe for blue fish crabcakes.  Yum. 

Jarred

5/16 Went out for the first time!

Yesterday I decided that I had to go and get the yak wet.  Since I haven't been on a kayak in prolly 10 years I decided to stick with freshwater fishing.  I decided I would do this because all I really wanted to do was just throw a spinner out and drag it around while I got used to maneuvering the Caster.  One of the great things about being military is that I get to use all the resources that the Military bases provide.  Which means great places to go fishing that don't get fished out. 

I picked Lake Bradford as my first place to take the yak.  I was told that there are a lot of crappie and large mouth bass that roam around, but you have to be able to get to them.  After fishing for about an hour and a half I finally caught a few of these.

Ok, First off I know you are like, "that isn't a striper!".  I know that this is not a striper.  The piece of paper with the word on it is for another purpose that I will discuss at a later time.

The bad thing about finding the crappie was that I think it jinxed me because as soon as I started catching the skies turned black and the wind turned on.  So I had to head back on in. 

Even though I did not get to stay out very long, it was a blast.  That fact that I caught a few just made the memory even deeper.  Fish On!!

Jarred

5/15 I picked her up.

Well on sunday i went and picked up my new/used kayak.  She is a Perception Caster 12.5.  She isn't the best yak out there by any means, but for someone new to the sport of kayak fishing such as myself, she is beautiful.  I have seriously been wanting to get into the sport since 2007.  But between being in S. Korea for two years and then living on the third floor of an apartment building it just wasn't possible.  But now that I have my own place with my gorgeous girlfriend and am in the first floor of an apartment i talked her into letting me get a kayak.

So remember how earlier I said that my girlfriend agreed to let me have a yak.  Well here is why I think she is being so gracious...

My kayak has kind of taken over the living room.  So next I guess I have to get a house.   That is all for now, good luck to anyone goin' out.  Fish On!!!

Jarred