Kayak Fishing With a Friend and His Kids

I took my old business partner, Stephen, and two of his kids kayak fishing in Gasparilla Sound. Stephen’s nine-year-old daughter Myra spent the day fishing from the front of my Hobie tandem pedal kayak. She didn’t do much pedaling; she let her dad who was in the back do all the work. Caden, Stephen’s twelve-year-old son, paddled one of my sit-on -top single kayaks. It was the first time the kids fished from a kayak. Caden said this is fun we need to do this again.
Caden caught several small trout, some mangrove snapper, and, of course, his share of the bait stealing pinfish. It was choppy the day we were out, so it was a little tough paddling. We had to paddle around quite a bit to find the fish. Caden got a workout he wasn’t expecting. On the drive back home it took Caden all of two minutes to fall asleep in the back seat of my truck. He was worn out.
Myra caught fish using her four-foot purple kids pole. I was surprised she could land a fish with such a small pole. She caught a few nice size snappers that gave her quite a fight. She caught a few small trout as well. Unfortunately something happened to Myra that I didn’t think was possible; she got seasick in the kayak.
The trout bite slowed down for about an hour, so I asked Stephen if he wanted to try to catch a shark, he said sure. I had the kids, and Stephen keep the pinfish they caught so we can use them later for cut-bait. I like to use cut up pinfish for sharks and redfish. I prefer ladyfish chunks for redfish bait, but I like pinfish for catching sharks. I found a spot for us to anchor while we soaked the baits on the bottom. After we had been anchored for about twenty minutes, Myra started to get sick to her stomach. The front of the kayak was bouncing around in the choppy conditions. I told Stephen we should pull anchor and drift again; it would make her feel better. But he said that’s okay she ‘ll be fine. Well, she wasn’t fine, and she started vomiting. I felt sorry for her. I’ve been seasick before, and it is not fun. We finally pulled up anchor and drifted again. She never did recover until we got back to the car.
Overall, everyone had a great time. Many of my kayak fishing clients have never fished from a kayak before. Some have fished from a boat before but not a kayak. Others had kayaked before but never fished. Kayak fishing is a new experience for most people. A common response I get when we are finished kayaking is, that was even more fun than I thought it would be. One of my clients liked it so much she bought her own kayak. After she had bought her kayak, she asked me to go with her on her maiden voyage with her new kayak.
Fishing from a kayak gives you a much different perspective than fishing from a boat, and it’s much cheaper to maintain and operate. My wife was thrilled when she learned how much I like kayak fishing. No gas, no yearly tune-up, no annual tag registration, etc. She was all for it.