I have been kayak fishing for a while now but a bit over a year ago, I had a small tear to both of my shoulder rotator cuffs and decided to take a break. Up until now, the shoulders haven't recovered fully yet, I sometimes still feel tension even when doing nothing. So I decided to switch from my RTM Tempo ocean fishing kayak:
To a used Hobie Mirage Revolution 11:
They might look the same size on the photo but the RTM Tempo is a 4.50m boat when the Revo 11 is 3.50m so the difference in length is not negligible. 1 meter shorter means:
- less fast or requires more effort to go as fast as a longer one of same width. What slows a boat down is when water leaves the hull at the stern, a longer boat will delay that event.
- less comfortable in choppy water. Hold one end of a pencil on a table, put a rubber under the center of the pencil and note the angle the pencil makes with the table. As you move the rubber closer to the end that touches the table, the angle increases. As you move the rubber farther away (closer to the end that is in the air), the angle decrease. So a short kayak will make you shake you more when lifted by the same wave as a long kayak because of that angle.
I took the Revo 11 out at The Entrance, in the lake, for a night fishing session chasing Flatheads.
One thing I noticed is that the original Hobie padded seat wasn't comfortable for me, despite many people liking it. After less than 30 minutes pedalling, I was feeling tension in my lower back which goes away when I put my feet down from the pedals. This tells me that it's the angle legs/body that is probably too small and is pulling on my muscles/tendons. I'm not very flexible so I'm more sensitive to this. So I went on and swap the Hobie seat for a Freak Pro Angler Elite seat that is much thicker and hence raises my butt and reduces that angle.
The Freak seat made a huge difference.
I caught several undersized Flathead and a legal size female which I released because she looked like she's full of eggs.
A flounder caught as a bycatch became my dinner for the following day.
On Sunday, I decided to give the Revo 11 a try offshore. The forecast announced a 1.0 meter swell which is usually OK for kayaking in the open water. But as I got there, it was very windy. Looking at the water, I thought it is safe to still go as the gusts were not strong and the chops wasn't that bad.
So I launched from Terrigal Haven boat ramp and as I went out towards the ocean, I caught a Bonito by trolling a lure behind the kayak. I then went farther out in front of the rocks and that when things got worse. The waves were higher and more frequent and the wind was also blowing stronger. In the shorter kayak, I could feel the waves more but it wasn't bad. I casted few times but at some point the wind tangled my line and made a mess. I couldn't fix it easily so I decided to go back to the bay, when you fish in that kind of water you always want focus your attention on the sea, not looking down undoing a tangle. Im summary, I'm quite impressed with how stable the Hobie Revolution 11 is in choppy water, at several times, I could feel that the kayak was going to flip but the secondary stability kicked in and adjusting my body slightly to the opposite direction to the flip and I managed to easily regain balance. I will probably not be going 8 kilometres offshore like I did with the RTM Tempo, but 1 or 2 km should be OK when conditions are good.
But the sun is now high up in the sky and the fish have stopped biting. So after few more casts, I called it a day and went back home with a little Bonito of 37 cm.
Previously on my blog:
- Found a Jewels of Opar aka Fake Ginseng on the side of the road
- Garden summer update
- Some places to eat in Nouméa, New Caledonia
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