Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

Not from a kayak, but still wanted to share.

A very good buddy of mine, ReelAnxious, and I decided to go out and hit the bay for the first time in a while. I hurt myself pretty bad a few weeks back and have been restricted from work and everything else. So we figured the bay would be a good warm up before trying to go out and tackle bigger fish, plus I love bass fishing more than anything else in this world!

So we started the morning off in Tideland park in hopes for a nice halibut mixed in with the bass. It didn't take long for Uncle Paul to hook up his first fish. Before I knew it, he had me down 5 to 1. It was funny bc he started getting cauky and turned around and backlashes pretty good. We both got a nice little laugh out of it. We continued to work the bridge pretty hard, then took off and hit another ledge by the island for a handful more fish. After that we fish in front of Seaport and then the Port of SD. The boat traffic was just crazy, so we headed towards SI. We ended up with 20 or so fish between the two of us in the Tideland area.

Once we got to SI it didn't take long to start picking up some nice spotties on a spot that has always been a sure thing for me on a slow day. Picked up a handful then headed down to another spot on SI. This stop I knew would give up sandies if they were still around. Sure enough we got on a pattern and started pulling sandies up. We bounced around for the next hour and half and yielded 15 beaut's. I think only 2 of them were not legal. We managed a cpl really nice ones. It was hard to get an exact weight on it, the scale was bouncing from 4.98-4.09 bc of the wakes, it settled down for a sec around 4.28lb. Nice fish. It was my biggest day time bass out of the big bay. After tangling with the bass we decided to go over to the bait barge to see if we could pick up a nice halibut.

Once we got over we started drifting ( by the way for those who do not know I didn't, they move the barge again back to its original spot). We got a few bites, but after an hour we made a quick move over to AR's next to north island. We got a few bites there as well, but the wind made it impossible to fish. I had two more spots in mind along SI that I knew were going to produce nice numbers of spots. Hit the first one and Paul hooks up his first two casts. We grinded it out for an hour for about 15-20 fish. Then bounced over to another spot and then and another for no love. I told Paul I have one spot that's is a killer evening bite. He said let's do it.

We get over to the spot, position, and then start thumping heads! It was non-stop till the sunset completely. I was telling Paul that the spots yields nice halibut this time of yr after they finish up, and/or start up spawning. Had a good 34"-35" miss my bait about 6" below the surface right at the boat. Paul got onto a little flurry and picked up 3 halibuts in 3 casts, one legal. He had a cpl follow him up to the boat as well. We ended the day with 50-60 fish easily if not more.

At the close of the night, I almost got crushed by another boat. I was fishing one side of the boat and Paul the other. I turned over to see where Paul was casting and saw a boat headed straight at us. I didn't think to much of it bc everybody was blowing withing 10' feet of us all day, we had a sign on our boat or something that said please wake us. I finish reeling and turn around to throw back out on Paul's side and see the boat is not turning. I start screaming at the jackass and at the very last sec the guy lets off the fuel and turn hard. I don't know how the guy didn't hit us. He was within in an inch or two literally. The back of his boat went under the front of ours. I think when he slowed down, that his boat pushed just enough water at ours to put a buffer between us. I looked over and Paul was in shock, I told him was a good thing I turned around bc that guy would have smashed us. What I didn't get is that there were two guys in the boat and the guy in front was staring right at us the whole time. He never said anything to his buddy until I started screaming at them. The guy in from said sorry, gee thanks, and the driver just gave us a dirty ass look. I don't know what the heck there deal was, drunk, drugged up or what. Something was up.

Besides nearly getting the boat F'd up and getting thrown for a ride with possible injuries, it was a very nice day on the water. I'm so ready get back out. I'm thinking of getting back on the yak once my hand heals up. I find out today if I'm going to have to have surgery or not. Well I hope you guys enjoyed. Get out there bc they are biting and the halibut are still around. I had a lot of raked bites through out the day.