PWC Fishing: Wait, Before You Turn the Page…. - The Fisherman

PWC Fishing: Wait, Before You Turn the Page….

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page MAIN
Chasing schools of bluefish in the spring and summer is a real run and gun thing when you get your motor running on a personal water craft (PWC). Photo by Gary Caputi.

AAMOF, some younger, hardcore anglers are finding it’s actually AOK to fish from a PWC.

As a young kid growing up in north Delaware there was an abundance of fishing opportunities either in Delaware or in the surrounding states. Freshwater and saltwater were both close by, and I got my fair share of experience at a young age.

My pops would often wake me up before dawn to get down to the dock on the eastern shore and take our old 18-foot Wellcraft with an even older Force engine out onto the Chesapeake flats to target rockfish (striped bass). Many of the techniques were taught to me over the years from top water to jigging, we did it all and caught some nice fish.

As the years wore on they took a toll on our boat and we began to spend more time dead on the water than we did fishing. I was around 12 years old when the boat officially became more trouble than it was worth. Around Christmas of that year my mom was looking for Christmas gifts for my pops who’s always been a little hard to buy for as she looked around stores and the internet a mutual friend of her and my pop’s mentioned that he was looking to sell his Jet-Ski – more specifically a 1994 Sea-Doo two-seater. So she went and took a look at it and eventually bought it.

Little did she know that on that day she started a long, awesome and expensive journey for me and my dad.

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page AUTHORS VERSION
The author’s PWC and the simple PVC structure he’s added to make it more fishable.

A Tool in the Box

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Aw man this dude bought a Jet-Ski; I hate Jet-Skis.” Trust me I know everyone has had some jack wagon cruising at 40 mph 20 yards off the bow of their boat right at the perfect tide and wind. I get it; I’ve been there and yelled at that guy as every fish in that area promptly swam away never to return. But what if we could take what was meant to be a fast, cruising, wave jumping machine and turn it into the ultimate fishing platform?

Soon after mom bought dad that personal watercraft (PWC) when I was 12, he purchased another 2001 Yamaha xl700 three-seater, which is where our journey into this type of fishing began. So I was messing around on the internet one day and I saw a guy who had rigged a single rodholder to the back handle of his ski and I thought to myself “man this guy has the right idea.”

Why not? A single rodholder was all you needed right? Not quite but he wasn’t far off!

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page Yamaha
A fully tricked out Yamaha WaveRunner on the flats in the Florida Keys, an elaborate set-up to say the least and a good example of what you can do with a PWC.

On my first attempt I didn’t even bother to mount a rod tube; I wasn’t going to drill a hole into my ski just to see if it were possible to even fish off of it. It’s a good thing too; I went out I held a rod in my left hand, steered the ski with my right hand and had a backpack with some tackle. If you were at the dock that day you would have laughed until you cried watching me try to maneuver my ski while balancing myself, all while holding a fishing rod. It was horrible; the ski was very unstable and I couldn’t stand and fish for the life of me without falling off. Honestly I almost gave up.

Soon after this incident I sank my Sea-Doo in a river and that was almost it for this story.

But we started looking around for another PWC, something bigger and more stable and maybe a little faster to appease that need for speed we had. We eventually found a 2005 Yamaha FXHO for sale in New York, and pops and I took off in the ol’ pickup to see if we could get another one. We ended up coming home with it in tow, which is when my plight to fish off a ski became more possible than ever.

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page ANGLER ADRIFT
A New Jersey angler adrift aboard his “Jet-Ski” which is actually a brand of PWC produced by Kawasaki.
Photo by John DeBona.

What’s Old Is New

I took my pop’s old ski, and he took the new one and we began developing a system for fishing from them. At first we just carried a bag and laid the rods in the wells. It worked, but often we would catch a hook to the foot, or our rods would bump around and get tangled. I began working on a rack system for the back of our skis that would be able to hold the rods. At first I started with some 2×4 pieces of wood. I built a small platform and bolted a three-rod holder to it that I bought at a local tackle shop secured with a few zip ties to the back handle and a pair of ratchet straps to the tow hooks on the back of the ski.

The first time out it seemed to work okay, but it wasn’t the best because it flexed too much when you hit a wave from the pressure of the ratchet straps. After I pulled it out of the water it would mold up really bad; I even painted it but it didn’t help much. Even with all its issues I had an idea of what would work and what wouldn’t.

From there I tried a few different materials, the most notable being metal piping; the main reason this didn’t work was because it was too hard to work with. Since I can’t weld the only option was to use threaded pieces and finding ones that worked with my angles and measurements proved to be very difficult. I quickly scrapped that model.

The most successful and the final material I used was PVC pipe as it’s easy to work with and available in all shapes and sizes. I made a rack that went from the back handle to the standing deck and mounted a three-rod holder to it secured it with zip ties, and we went fishing. It worked very well, held the rods in place and they didn’t get tangled. Plus, it was easy to remove them and allowed us to fish standing or sitting.

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page GAS CANS
The top of the line VX series WaveRunner from Yamaha offers more than 18 gallons of gas capacity, but the 24-1/2-gallon storage capacity provides a little extra for those looking to push their range.

EZ Rider

I still wanted to find a way to not have to carry a back pack so I adapted my PVC setup to have a platform sit on top of the third row seat on the ski where I could mount a tackle box. While I was at it I built a bigger rack on the standing deck that would allow me to mount a decent size cooler to it and I was in business. I built two of these racks for me and pops by the time I bought all the materials and got it mounted it only cost around $40 per rack.

We fished with these for a few years before I decided to change them again–my reason being that I didn’t always want the rack on for when I was just riding and not fishing, but oftentimes I wouldn’t take it off due to the decent amount of time it took for us to remount the racks onto the ski. So I developed a slimmed down version of the current rack for my pop’s ski. I found that a three-rod holder that was heated and bent to match the curve of his back handle worked perfect so I stuck with that for his ski. Of course my ski wasn’t as easy; I took some PVC pipe and built a frame that went from the standing deck to the back handle and mounted a three-rod holder to that and had to secure it with two screws, and this worked well for me. We both had to carry backpacks but for the sake of convenience for those last minute trips we were okay with it.

Since we built the racks we have upgraded our water craft a few times and the beauty of the PVC pipe is that it’s easily adapted from ski to ski with minor adjustments and a few cuts.

If you want to build your own it’s pretty easy. I used half inch pipe and the normal PVC glue with a few stainless steel screws as back up. Of course, every PWC is different; there really isn’t a cookie cutter mold to use but a few hours of trial and error and you’ll have a really good idea of what you want to do and how to get it done.

2018 2 Wait Before You Turn Page RAFT UP IF NEEDED

FISH FOCUS – PWC FISHING

Perhaps bridging the gap between the kayak and the center console, the personal water craft offers plenty of angler benefits. They’re relatively easy to maintain, can access shallower water, and often provide access to the outer bars and unreachable beaches where a yak or skiff actually couldn’t get.

“In the end I’m glad I have my skis and not a boat,” the author said. “My gas bill is much less than it used to be; I can get to places boats can’t and I can get there much faster than most.”

And perhaps unlike the serenity of pedal/paddle driven craft or the heavier platform delivery of an outboard, there is the Born to Be Wild aspect. “On top of all that I can jump waves and enjoy the ride while taking part in my favorite past time with my pops,” Shenenberger added.

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