It was a sad day: Newport - Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

YakAttak · 06-24-2013, 02:26 PM

It all started about a month ago. I was having nothing to do and was surfing on BD then found the kayak sub-forum, which led me to this forum. Then a week later, a friend who has 2 kayaks asked me to join him for a kayak and fishing session in Long Beach bay. It was fun, my friend caught a lot of croakers with mussels, I was throwing swimbait and picked up quite a few spotted bay bass, couple legals, and some short halis. I was hooked and spent a lot of my free time here on BWE reading and researching. One week later, with the limitted buget, I bought my first kayak, an Ocean Scramber, used, but good enough to be rigged up for fishing the bay I guess. I was happy and excited. Spent 2 weeks gathering stuffs spent all the time I had during those 2 weeks rigged it up with 2 flush mount rod holders, added a egg crate with a custom "bucket" bait tank with all the needed plumbings and 4 rod holders, running all the wires and added a hummingbird 595ci FF. Waited day by day until Sunday for the grand opening of my kayak. Saturday night, I put everything on the kayak to get used setting it up so I would have to spent less time at the beach and more time to fishing. Everything is completed. I arranged stuffs in different bags so I have an easier time locating them.

Sunday, arrived to Newport kid beach @ 5am, set up my kayak and realized I must had left the bag with all the leashes in the backyard. Figured it couldn't be that bad with out the leashes in the bay, so I proceeded and launched around 6am. It was windy with offshore winds but it was a nice day with full of expectations on my new little toy.

And the most depressing day of my fishing life began.

While paddling out to the bait barge, as we were about a hundred ft away I switched on the pump to fill the baiit tank with water. Mettered a lot of fish on a spot that we just passed through so I turned to the left to talk to my friend of coming back here later to fish. It was right then I got hit by a sideway wave from an open-party charter boat and flipped over.

. My first instint was to grab my gears but everything went by so fast, and I could only grab my tackle box. By the time I flipped my yak back and got back on it. I wanted to cry, all my rods were gone, galf, landing net, battery, anchor, everything, just gone. There was something extremely uncomfortable stuck at my chest, my heart sank looking at my empty kayak with I spent weeks hoping, dreaming and rigging. The gears which I spent countless time researching and saving to get, all were my favorites which I selected to accompany me to my first kayak trip. GONE. Only my sabiki rod is left

I can't quite imagine why I would flip too easily in the bay, not on open water. I had been on rental kayak and my friends kayak many time and had never flipped so easily. Maybe it was the way my yak was built? I have no knowledge in yak design, but the only thing I noticed was my Ocean Scrambler's width is significant smaller than my friends' no-brand yak and others that I saw at the launch that day. Was it the smaller width with the added bait tank half full with water, or was it me? I mean I don't have experience with yak in open water, but I've been on one many time in the bays. I don't know and kept asking myself why did I flipped so easily. I said easily because 30 mins later of my initial I was sitting next to my friend fishing with my sabiki rod, I got flipped again.

After that, I just got discourage and didn't feel like fishing anymore, plus the cold was kicking in with the wind and all the wet clothes so I went back to the landing beach. While at the beach, I met and chatted with a nice guy who also a member here on BWE. His name is Wes, and he was on a red hobie (forgot a model), who offered condolence and asked for my phone number and said he'll give me a call in case he snag any of my gear while trolling for halis. Thanks Wes, no matter if you run into my gear or not.

Total lost was around a grand of long time savings and collecting.

New Landing net, bait net: $40
New Galf: $30
Carrot Stick spinning w/ Abu reel: $150
Carrot Stick Gold 7'10 & Shimano 201 TE: $500
Abu Garcia Volatile & Daiwa Lexa 300: $300
Battery & Box: $90
Anchor & Rope: $25
Pliers: $10
Sandals: found 1

, the other drifted away

Filet Knife
Sunglasses

It was a sad and depressing day indeed. I spent over an hr try to snag my gears with a trebble hook and sinker but didn't run into them. Maybe the current drifted it somewhere else in the bay. Maybe someone with a food down imaging FF might be able to locate them and have some use of them.

I'm sorry, I was lurking and reading on this forum for the last couple weeks, and was really looking forward to post my first report here with a nice catch but not, something caught me

.

06-24-2013, 02:26 PM	#1
YakAttak Member Join Date: Jun 2013 Posts: 82	It was a sad day: Newport It all started about a month ago. I was having nothing to do and was surfing on BD then found the kayak sub-forum, which led me to this forum. Then a week later, a friend who has 2 kayaks asked me to join him for a kayak and fishing session in Long Beach bay. It was fun, my friend caught a lot of croakers with mussels, I was throwing swimbait and picked up quite a few spotted bay bass, couple legals, and some short halis. I was hooked and spent a lot of my free time here on BWE reading and researching. One week later, with the limitted buget, I bought my first kayak, an Ocean Scramber, used, but good enough to be rigged up for fishing the bay I guess. I was happy and excited. Spent 2 weeks gathering stuffs spent all the time I had during those 2 weeks rigged it up with 2 flush mount rod holders, added a egg crate with a custom "bucket" bait tank with all the needed plumbings and 4 rod holders, running all the wires and added a hummingbird 595ci FF. Waited day by day until Sunday for the grand opening of my kayak. Saturday night, I put everything on the kayak to get used setting it up so I would have to spent less time at the beach and more time to fishing. Everything is completed. I arranged stuffs in different bags so I have an easier time locating them. Sunday, arrived to Newport kid beach @ 5am, set up my kayak and realized I must had left the bag with all the leashes in the backyard. Figured it couldn't be that bad with out the leashes in the bay, so I proceeded and launched around 6am. It was windy with offshore winds but it was a nice day with full of expectations on my new little toy. And the most depressing day of my fishing life began. While paddling out to the bait barge, as we were about a hundred ft away I switched on the pump to fill the baiit tank with water. Mettered a lot of fish on a spot that we just passed through so I turned to the left to talk to my friend of coming back here later to fish. It was right then I got hit by a sideway wave from an open-party charter boat and flipped over.. My first instint was to grab my gears but everything went by so fast, and I could only grab my tackle box. By the time I flipped my yak back and got back on it. I wanted to cry, all my rods were gone, galf, landing net, battery, anchor, everything, just gone. There was something extremely uncomfortable stuck at my chest, my heart sank looking at my empty kayak with I spent weeks hoping, dreaming and rigging. The gears which I spent countless time researching and saving to get, all were my favorites which I selected to accompany me to my first kayak trip. GONE. Only my sabiki rod is left I can't quite imagine why I would flip too easily in the bay, not on open water. I had been on rental kayak and my friends kayak many time and had never flipped so easily. Maybe it was the way my yak was built? I have no knowledge in yak design, but the only thing I noticed was my Ocean Scrambler's width is significant smaller than my friends' no-brand yak and others that I saw at the launch that day. Was it the smaller width with the added bait tank half full with water, or was it me? I mean I don't have experience with yak in open water, but I've been on one many time in the bays. I don't know and kept asking myself why did I flipped so easily. I said easily because 30 mins later of my initial I was sitting next to my friend fishing with my sabiki rod, I got flipped again. After that, I just got discourage and didn't feel like fishing anymore, plus the cold was kicking in with the wind and all the wet clothes so I went back to the landing beach. While at the beach, I met and chatted with a nice guy who also a member here on BWE. His name is Wes, and he was on a red hobie (forgot a model), who offered condolence and asked for my phone number and said he'll give me a call in case he snag any of my gear while trolling for halis. Thanks Wes, no matter if you run into my gear or not. Total lost was around a grand of long time savings and collecting. New Landing net, bait net: $40 New Galf: $30 Carrot Stick spinning w/ Abu reel: $150 Carrot Stick Gold 7'10 & Shimano 201 TE: $500 Abu Garcia Volatile & Daiwa Lexa 300: $300 Battery & Box: $90 Anchor & Rope: $25 Pliers: $10 Sandals: found 1 , the other drifted away Filet Knife Sunglasses It was a sad and depressing day indeed. I spent over an hr try to snag my gears with a trebble hook and sinker but didn't run into them. Maybe the current drifted it somewhere else in the bay. Maybe someone with a food down imaging FF might be able to locate them and have some use of them. I'm sorry, I was lurking and reading on this forum for the last couple weeks, and was really looking forward to post my first report here with a nice catch but not, something caught me .