When it comes to landing a fish I'm all fingers and thumbs, where do I put my rod and get the fish off the hook and not tip over etc etc???
Maxine [ my partner] loves to keep it simple. She has a shorter and slightly wider sea kayak . Her preferred tackle is a hand line and a piece of bacon for bait!
Don't laugh - she catches fish. Especially from her favourite spot [Grandpa's rock], about 5 minutes paddle from her 'bach' in Tauranga Bay near the most beautiful Whangaroa harbour.
Until we get a proper fishing kayak [ if we do], we often take the bach 'ute' a QK Escapade instead of my skinny tippy thing and raft up to Maxine's Tui and deploy our long line.
The Escapade paddles well and is a superbly stable platform.
You can see Maxine's hand line attached to the deck bungy, plus the prebaited traces for the long line.
In the Escapade are anchor [ in the bucket in the tank well], buoy and the actual long line on reel.
We also have a running anchor rig for the Escapade.
How we do the long line thing?
I anchor the Escapade, Maxine rafts up in her Tui facing me. As I deploy the long line, Maxine attaches the traces as the line is fed out. After the first trace is attached, the anchor for the line is hooked on, the remaining traces are attached and lastly the buoy.
We detach and paddle around. Or, more accurately I paddle around and Maxine then employs her faithful handline + bacon bait.
We only wait about 30 minutes maximum before we raft up and recover the line [ reverse the process].
Our best catch is 4 fish from 5 traces - the biggest a 420mm long snapper which fed us over two meals.
It is a system that works well for us.
We have a very stable platform with the two kayaks rafted up [ especially as one is a wider sit on top].
We are facing each other and so communication is maximised.
We have life jackets on, and other suitable clothing depending on the weather.
We have fun.
We know we can go fishing the next day and catch more - one or two fish will feed us adequately.
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