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I made the 4+ hour drive to Cape Charles to take 1 of 3 5-person excursions Kayak Kevin offered at Kiptopeke State Park this summer. Great guy. Had a great day.
It was my first time there. To get there I had to cross the CBBT which is an incredible structure. It's an approximately 12 mile bridge-tunnel combination. The Park is about 5 miles for the base of the bridge. The Park has a nice beach, long fishing pier, and 9 grouped WWII concrete ships beached in 30 ft of water about a half-mile off the beach. There purpose of the ships is as a wave break to protect the pier and beach from erosion. For my purposes they are one big fishing structure. And I caught so many fish! 9 keeper croaker, 5 black sea bass, a huge spot, a pig fish and a very big flounder in 1 1/2 hours!
The "fishing 101 course" was very basic, and 2 of the 5 in the group had never been in a kayak, but it didn't matter because it was a very short paddle to the ships. We used basic, inexpensive Diawi spinning rods with 12 pound test and 1/0 J hooks on mono double drop rig. Nothing fancy. We used squid as bait, and one guy used a white bucktail with a chartruese gulp mullet. His mullet got bitten in half all day and I didn't see him land a thing. One guy turtled in his Jackson Cuda that he brought with him because he didn't want to use the "faulty" Ocean Kayaks. LOL. Whatever!
Basically, I learned to deal with current, proper positioning to fish structure, dropping bait in eddys and bait pools around current and structure, landing and dehooking fish in a kayak, and self-rescue. Overall is was probably too basic for many of you here, but it was worth it to me. I spent 8 hours in the car with Dad (lots of talk time), learned some skills, fished with the guy that got me into kayak fishing, and enjoyed a beautiful day on the water.
I don't have a kayak camera yet but I'll post some pics when Kevin send them to me.
It was my first time there. To get there I had to cross the CBBT which is an incredible structure. It's an approximately 12 mile bridge-tunnel combination. The Park is about 5 miles for the base of the bridge. The Park has a nice beach, long fishing pier, and 9 grouped WWII concrete ships beached in 30 ft of water about a half-mile off the beach. There purpose of the ships is as a wave break to protect the pier and beach from erosion. For my purposes they are one big fishing structure. And I caught so many fish! 9 keeper croaker, 5 black sea bass, a huge spot, a pig fish and a very big flounder in 1 1/2 hours!
The "fishing 101 course" was very basic, and 2 of the 5 in the group had never been in a kayak, but it didn't matter because it was a very short paddle to the ships. We used basic, inexpensive Diawi spinning rods with 12 pound test and 1/0 J hooks on mono double drop rig. Nothing fancy. We used squid as bait, and one guy used a white bucktail with a chartruese gulp mullet. His mullet got bitten in half all day and I didn't see him land a thing. One guy turtled in his Jackson Cuda that he brought with him because he didn't want to use the "faulty" Ocean Kayaks. LOL. Whatever!
Basically, I learned to deal with current, proper positioning to fish structure, dropping bait in eddys and bait pools around current and structure, landing and dehooking fish in a kayak, and self-rescue. Overall is was probably too basic for many of you here, but it was worth it to me. I spent 8 hours in the car with Dad (lots of talk time), learned some skills, fished with the guy that got me into kayak fishing, and enjoyed a beautiful day on the water.
I don't have a kayak camera yet but I'll post some pics when Kevin send them to me.
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