[Daniel_Gig]

I’m glad I’m not the only one second guessing my actions. The apocalyptic videos and photos of dead fish are weighing on me, and personally, my area is still good, for now at least until the rest of our coast comes.

Paying things off is a good thing. Wouldn’t it be worse to be paying monthly for a boat that just sits? When my boat was being repaired I couldn’t help to think I was paying for something I couldn’t even use lol from my understanding that area is always bad this time of year. Try fishing for bass if nothing else.

On the conservation front: it’s hard to lead by example for anyone who doesn’t have an online following, ie not a social media influencer. Like if I do 100% catch and release, unless I video record it, how does any one know? This is why I like the tag Louisiana program. Using their app gives me a metric to gauge a good trip, and you can screen shot your catch numbers to replace the dock shot.

Yes it’s cca funded I believe, but what’s our other option? If I could develop anything more than a bad habit, I would develop a fishing app/ tagging program that included a social aspect to it. I keep encouraging tagLA to make a leader board for most tagged fish each month instead of only posting the top 10 each month in a random order.

I’ve been trying to spread the word on Facebook, but end up arguing with people who say @Devin “records trips in Florida and then claims they were from Louisiana”, or they “saw Devin fishing and he caught 10 fish but claimed he caught 120 fish , and didn’t keep any so he’s a liar”… like wtf did this dude follow you around to every spot you fished? And further more if you don’t keep fish for a dock shot it means you didn’t catch? wtf is wrong with these people

[Daniel_Gig]

@kcolden70510 Thanks for reporting. I can’t offer any advice on that area.

But I can give some input on fishing with kids. What’s their ages? if you don’t mind me asking. Fishing artificial lures will be hard if they can’t cast. If that is the only option you have, fish under a cork to limit the amount of casting you have to do. Dead bait may be an option or gulp shrimp.

Heres my advice on fishing with kids.

1: limit expectations. Yours and theirs. Don’t go talking about catching limits or record sized fish, it will only disappoint them when it doesn’t happen.

2: find the fish first. If YOU arent catching, putting a pole in their hands is almost pointless. Sometimes I’ll give them my phone after they get restless, but only until I find the fish.

3: find spots where you can anchor and fish. Bass style fishing is hard for kids who lack casting skills.adding a moving boat into the equation makes it impossible. Fish Choke points: drop shot with a dead/live shrimp, or if it’s shallow under a cork work well.

4: if they aren’t casting yet, buy them a zebco pole. Paw patrol,Moana, Spider-Man lol whatever. Put the practice plug on the line and let them take it into the yard. Show them a few times and let them work it out. My 2 year is a beast at casting his paw patrol. He can cast it over the 6’ fence. Then I put a topwater plug on it with no hooks (huge mistake). He casted it into our 75” tv and broke it. Point is, practice makes perfect, you can’t just tell them.

5: enjoy the little things. The birds. The landscape. Make it a fun teachable experience, especially if you know what you’re talking about. Either way have fun with them.

6: Personally I’ve had the most success, and least stress on myself when I take one kid at a time. 2 kids maybe if they can get along and aren’t fighting for your attention. But more than that, I won’t go without the wife

I think the ritual is what they will remember. Waking up early, getting breakfast. Some kids will be into it, others not so much. We have 5 kids. 4 are step children. The second oldest girl, I’ve had her on a crazy bite reeling in 15” trout every cast. Baiting her hook, unhooking the fish. She looked at me after about 5 fish and said “ do we have to keep doing this? I’m ready to go”. Her little sister on the other hand loves coming with me. Talks her butt off, but loves it. She never turns me down on a trip lol

Hope that helps

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Daniel_Gig.

[Daniel_Gig]

Thanks for reporting

[Daniel_Gig]

Welcome. Yes you can definitely catch fish from a kayak, especially the ones where you can move hands free. It sounds like you have one of those old towne kayaks with spot lock and all. Great choice in my opinion, although I’ve never used any kayak other than a cheap paddle kayak, where boat positioning was extremely difficult. But with a trolling motor, that problem should be eliminate.

I think it also matters what your goal is. If you’re looking to fill coolers with fish every trip, then maybe a boat would’ve been a better choice. But if you’re cool with spending a morning on the water, enjoying the outdoors, and catching some fish, awesome.

In 2020, with very little fishing experience other than when I was a kid, I bought a new 21’ bay boat. In hindsight I should’ve bought a used flat boat or bass tracker. I would be more willing to adventure to new areas if I wasn’t so concerned with damaging my “pretty” fiberglass boat. I’ve thought about buying a hobie so I could travel by land to where the fish are. Instead of running 20-30 miles by boat to get out to islands, I would just go to grand isle or whatever

My one suggestion to you, especially at your age, and not knowing your physical abilities: make sure if you get flipped over, you can re board your kayak, especially if you are venturing more than swimming distance from shore. I would find a deep swimming pool where you can’t touch bottom and practice before you head out to the middle of no where. It’s harder than you might think, especially if you’re out of shape.

[Daniel_Gig]

Cool. I’ll report back when I go. Thanks

[Daniel_Gig]

@Devin

“Be careful spreading that info outside this forum”

Man that word is out. ALL of the gulf coast is plundering(I think that’s the right word) lake p estuary right now. I have 2 reports to write, but what I will say is both days I fished, I must’ve counted 20-30 boats heading out, as I was coming in. (Which almost makes me want to keep my reports quiet, even here). The fog is what held them in, I foolishly braved the fog both days. Can’t say they were all going to the trestles, but the rigolets marina was overflowing onto the highway. And all those boats were headed towards chef pass so you have an idea of where they were headed.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Daniel_Gig.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Daniel_Gig.

[Daniel_Gig]

This is the one that’s broken. I hate that these reel makers make 100 sub models lol

[Daniel_Gig]

@WestbankJosh both of those lakes are almost 2hrs from me one way. But yeah I’d love to come try fishing down there. Might have to plan a trip down there where I stay overnight and do two days of fishing. When do they finish spawning? Like how long till that pattern changes approximately

[Daniel_Gig]

I’m not anti keeping, I love Chris bush’s philosophy with speckled truth, take only what you need and release the rest. And it doesn’t hurt to occasionally reevaluate what it is you actually need. Can’t tell you how many times Ive caught a limit then stopped at Popeyes on the way home lol.

[Daniel_Gig]

So typically I keep all my legal sized fish in the live well, even if I’m keeping fish, I throw them in the live well first. That way if I don’t catch the quantity I need, i can release the 1-4 fish, there’s nothing worse than cleaning one fish lol. Or like today, i used the live well so I could keep fishing while the bite was good. Then when i hit a lull in the action, id stop and tag a few at a time.

Exceptions to using the livewell are:

•Undersized fish (legal reasons and see below)

•Upper slot fish (I don’t wanna kill a large trout or redfish), I’ll still tag these but I stop what I’m doing and tag them at time of capture. I’ve accidentally killed them before by leaving too many in my livewell for too long.

• I don’t use the livewell if it’s extremely hot. If you use a livewell normally, you know the fish will die quickly if there’s too many and it’s too hot.

The only time I tag undersized fish is when im trying to tag a bunch of fish, and they are all undersized. Or redfish. I try to tag all the reds because I feel like they are tougher and will survive the tag better.

Once you get the kit, download the “anglers almanac” app. It makes recording them on the water way easier. I used to manually record them, but that’s time consuming. I used to always keep fish any time I had more than 5 fish. I tagged twice as many last year as I did in the first 2.5 years. Started realizing we weren’t really eating THAT much fish. And killing them to feed the dog seemed wasteful. That’s my current process, I’m sure I’ll refine it more as I tag more.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  Daniel_Gig.

[Daniel_Gig]

It makes catch and release more fun in my mind lol

[Daniel_Gig]

Yeah you definitely need that cap to use it properly. Contact the seller.

[Daniel_Gig]

I’ve been there on my jet ski before. I don’t believe there’s a dock there, not sure how I feel about beaching my boat. not that it’s in great condition, I already have bottom chips in the hull I need to have repaired lol. But maybe it’s doable.

Is that a good sacalait location?

[Daniel_Gig]

I could see Todd doing it in a passive way. Like a year or so back he would say “ I won’t harvest any reds right now” because we were seeing so few of them. But he’s right back to harvesting them.

@Devin i agree with Boyce. I appreciate the article you wrote and have shared it. Our fishery needs someone with a voice to speak up.

I personally haven’t been out since the freeze but what I’m seeing reports wise, it doesn’t look like that many fish are being caught, my fear is that’s because there simply isn’t many left. I know you mentioned LDWF might put new regulations in place, but my question is when? They shouldn’t wait so long.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  Daniel_Gig.

[Daniel_Gig]

Right… or chicken and cows like real Americans lol