I came across this site today and thought I should join up. My name is Jason Self, and I am a certified sea kayak guide and instructor, as well as a licensed kayak fishing guide, based out of Portland, OR, USA. My primary form of fishing is bottom fishing the ocean with a hand line from a sea kayak, although I occasionally will use a fly rod or conventional gear for other types of fishing. I'm always happy to answer any questions I can, and will be contributing trip reports to this site in the future. Here are a few pics from a couple of hand line kayak fishing trips this summer:
Welcome to HLF, Jason. Great to see another handliner on board. I've not tried Kayaking before, let alone fishing on one but it certainly looks fun! Kayak fishing has just become popular in recent years in our local angling community as well.
I have a question about Kayak fishing though. How do you deal with snags? I would imagine the limited buoyancy and balance of a Kayak makes it difficult to break the fishing line when needed. Or should one limit the choice of line strength?
You have my envy fishing in along such a beautiful coast, and that's a great catch you've got there.
Yes, selecting line strength is important. Starting out, I used a 20# mono leader, which is fairly easy to break off when snagged. As I got more comfortable breaking 20# line, I switched to 40# mono. It's challenging to break off, but I don't lose fish with it either.
It doesn't happen too often while kayak fishing though, and when it does, it's pretty easy to position over the line and shake it free. I'd say in the last 100 days of fishing I've had to break off 3 or 4 times. But I lose much less gear kayak fishing than bank or power boat fishing. I can pull my self with the rope over the snag because the kayak has such little resistance, and 99% of the time it comes free when I get over/in front of it.
The stability in kayaks while fishing all depends on the boat you chose, and your level of skill. I've got lots of practice in sea kayaks and feel totally comfortable, but most people use super wide sit on tops for fishing. I'm used to super efficient sea kayaks, and paddling a sit on top feels like paddling the dock compared to high performance sea kayaks, and I'm too lazy to work that hard, so I go with sea kayaks for 99% of everything I do.
I also like to spread out my time in a kayak. A typical day consists of dropping crab traps at the river mouth, paddling out the river mouth and kayak surfing a few sets, then out to the sea stacks for bottom fishing, then a little touring out to the sea caves etc, then back to the beach to cook it all up. Sea kayaks are ideal for these activities.