Ah… you always remember your first. Your first love, your first kiss, and your first fish. When you’re a hardcore angler like me, you remember your first fish in a number of ways: first of particular species, first with a favorite lure, first using a certain technique. Sometimes you get lucky. My first time kayak fishing, I rented a kayak off Shelter Island Pier in San Diego. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I fished a double dropper loop with strips of squid and drifted past structure. All of a sudden, my pole went heavy and I experienced my first ‘sleigh ride’ courtesy of two sand bass.
In this article from Kayak Angler, seven pro anglers recall their first catches from a kayak…
The first catch, the one that started you off on the path to becoming a kayak angler, is one you’ll never forget. Whether that first catch was a bass in a frog pond or a king mackerel in the ocean, you’re probably still telling the story. Kayak Angler asked seven pros what their first kayak catch was. Here’s what they told us:
1) Capt. Fil “Fishman” Spencer, one of the original Ocean Kayak pro staffers, kayak fishing pioneer/legend and guide/owner of fishmansguideservice.com.
–Well first I was on my surfboard and then a windsurfing board I built catching speckled trout and redfish, but when I got my first SOT, over 25 years ago, I was gone, it made things so much easier.
I was going for speckled trout and would limit out at 8am and laugh about the other boaters who were just leaving the docks. I’d hide the fish I caught and if people saw they’d say, ‘you can fish from that?’ I’d laugh at that too.”
2) Amy Johnson, Jase Custom Fishing Rods, War Dog Lures, and SHO Baits pro and a Rudy Project fishing team member and BASS CRAZY team member.
–The first fish I caught from a kayak was a largemouth bass! It was about four pounds and took me for a ride in my little eight-foot kayak. That was three years ago.
Photos: Kayak Angler (top), SoCal Salty (above)
