A kayak can teach you things about your surf spots that you can’t learn any other way.
Last season I dipped my toe into the world of kayak fishing. I suppose I dipped more than just a toe, my ‘yak is fully outfitted and presents as a fishing machine, complete with lights and yes, a fishfinder. The first thing I learned is that while a fishfinder is a very helpful tool, I find that it helps me more when I’m using it to decide where not to fish.
I think surfcasters get caught up in the idea that a fish on the screen is automatically converted to a caught fish, I know I used to, that is just not that case. That’s just a tiny sliver of the things I learned that helped me understand certain aspects of surf fishing on a whole new level.
I would say that most surfcasters don’t get the opportunity to see an accurate picture of the bottom contour and structure in any of the spots they fish. We are forced to make educated guesses based on what we can see, like how a large wave might reveal a deep bar or submerged rock; or what we can feel, perhaps counting down a bucktail throughout a series of fan casts might reveal a depression or trough. I would say it’s a phenomenal exercise to try to build an accurate picture of what your spot looks like and how it works in conjunction with tidal currents, wind and other conditions, through the channels that are available to us as surfcasters. But, if you want to take that to the next level, floating your spots while a fishfinder scans the bottom will give you the advantage of knowing where you were right, where you were wrong and what you missed.
Last season I kayak fished a place (I thought) I knew intimately. I had this mental image of this choke point, where I believed I was reaching the channel and fishing across two levels of uniform depth, with a pinnacle of a submerged point down-tide. I was right about the two levels of uniform depth, there was a stretch of 5-foot depths and a stark line where it fell off to 7 feet. But the channel was way out of casting range, and in fact, the longer casts were landing on another hump that I didn’t even know was there. Beyond that hump was the channel, a place where the depth fell off to more than 20 feet. All those years I believed I was pulling fish up into the shallows from the channel, but I was about learn just how wrong I was.
As I pedaled along the 7- to 8-foot flat, I was marking pods of stripers, some were 30 inchers, others were 30-pounders. As I crisscrossed the area, I began to realize that these fish were traversing the flat, riding with the tide. There were pods of bunker that were also traversing the flat. Then it came into focus; that two level flat at the choke point, was a perfect ambush area, as the bait was sucked further toward the channel, the bass cold set up there and ambush prey. When the tide was going out, the fish could set up down-tide of the hump in the center and enjoy the same feeding advantage. I already knew the spot was productive, but now I had that advantage of understanding why.
Another spot I fished from shore was one of those weird places where the fish just do not show up until the tide turns. I had often wondered if the fish were there and just turned on with the tide or if they came in from somewhere else. I arrived 2 hours before the optimal tide, thinking “I should be able to find fish in a kayak with electronics” well, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I pedaled all over the place, way outside the area where I could even dream of fishing from shore and saw barely any life. Finally (mercifully) the tide came to a stop and then the magnetic pull of the flood took the water slowly in the opposite direction. About 45 minutes after the turn, the fish showed up, like herds of nomadic animals they seemed to materialize out of nowhere, suddenly the screen was loaded with marks, sizes ranging from schoolies to 30 pounds. The wind came up with the tide, kicking the water into a torrent, cast after cast had fish cartwheeling over each other trying to take down my glidebait.
I still have no idea where these fish stage, but I confirmed what I had learned after years of paying attention in that spot, you don’ waste your time on the dropping tide! There’s value in forming theories because they build instincts, but confirming the truth puts you on a path to a depth of understanding that can’t be matched any other way.
