Well, no help from Mother Nature this past Saturday. There were a total of 5 kayakers that participated in the inaugural Little Creek Cobia Open to benefit the local Children's Hospital. Of all the power boat-based teams entered, there were still only four measurable fish brought to the scales. None by the kayakers unfortunately, but as cobia anglers know, unless you are sight casting to them with eels and bucktails, you are basically just dropping live spot or croaker and waiting - not very exciting. For the boats that caught fish, clear water and sight casting was the ticket on Saturday which for the yak crowd is a disadvantage, yes even in the Pro Angler, Ride 135 or Native Slayers that were all designed for it. The boats with towers had a distinct advantage to say the least.
When you are anchored up for cobia with a live FF rig tied on, you need something to keep you busy. I spent the day catching bait-sized croaker, spot and roundheads. In total, I landed over 40 croaker (5-12"), a few undersized spot and a new species for me, several roundheads. On a side note, I did get to put my newest combo to the test for the day. I had purchased an almost new Stradic Ci4 2500 series reel and a like new AVID 6'8" M/XF rod. It is slowly becoming my favorite spinning combo.
The kayak crowd was manned by: Mark Lozier (1st Landing Kayak Fishing Services), Mark Patterson (NCKFA) and Joe Maccini (TKAA president) on one side of the HRBT complex and Chris Lam (TKAA member) and myself on the opposite side at Blue Fish Rock. We both got nailed by two of the three passing storms. The worst one missed us to the east and had some nasty lighting and 30-40mph winds that rolled straight north along the ES. The next two didn't miss us at all with the last hitting us dead square in the mouth 5 miles from shore. The cell formed literally in minutes and caught several people including boaters off guard with little time to seek shelter. We tried to make a run for it, but the storm rolled in on us with about a mile or so to go.
It was still worth it and we represented the kayak anglers from the area with class and dignity I thought. We even received a round of applause from the other boat captains and teams at the weigh in for competing and toughing it out. We'll be back next year to try and put one on the board!
Chasing Mr. Brown.....Enjoy the report and video summary.
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2019 Hobie Outback | 2018 Hobie Compass | 2017 Hobie Revolution 13
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