Cruisin’

Picked up my new 2013 Desert Camo Cruise from Pack & Paddle last night. The color is a mix of black, brown, and sand; I think it came out really good. Desert Camo is available in all the Jackson Kayak Fishing line, so with the Cruise being part of the Rec line I had to pay a little extra for it. The only color that really appealed to me in the Rec line was the Earth and I’ve already got an Earth colored Cuda 12.

I’ll have to do a minimal amount of rigging to make it a fishing craft fit for me, but that was one of the reasons I was drawn to the boat. The Cruise is my blank slate, I can rig it out how ever I like. Jackson does provide four inserts screws in typical locations just waiting for Ram mounts, but you’ll have to buy those yourself as they don’t come with the boat, something I failed to remember – I keep thinking the Cruise is in the Fishing line because it just looks like it should be.

While at Pack & Paddle I was able to attend LKFC’s monthly meeting. They’ve got their first tournament of the season coming up this weekend, Marsh Madness in Cocodrie. It’s got a pretty interesting format, click the link to check it out. Wish I didn’t have to work this weekend. Another interesting tidbit I found out at the meeting was from John Williams with Pack & Paddle. They’ve launched a new section of their website dedicated to Kayak Fishing in Louisiana. It looks to be a great resource for both rookie and veteran paddlers. Check that out as well, love those folks at Pack & Paddle.

Alligator Gar in a Kayak

 

I love this video by John Williams of Pack & Paddle of him catching a big alligator gar in his kayak. It looks like John is about to put the fish grips on him at 1:35, then he goes absolutely nuts. I don’t think too many people target gar down here, but I see them a good bit when I’m sightfishing reds in the marsh. In fact last time out with Blake, I saw one that looked to be every bit as long as my boat, nearly as wide too. It was like seeing a dinosaur.

John has a bunch of other kayak fishing videos, some entertaining, some instructional, y’all should check them out: Pack & Paddle Youtube channel

Pimp my Rack

I’ve been out of town all week for work and haven’t had much time to update the blog. Flew back to Baton Rouge this morning and got a chance to upgrade the rack on the my truck with some Yakima products I purchased last week while picking up my Coosa at Pack & Paddle. I got the railgrabs and a boatloader. My crossbars had previously been held up by U-bolts I bought at the local hardware store. They worked great, never slipped, but the exposed screws would scratch my kayaks. I suppose I could have remedied that with some plasti-dip, but I figured I should just go ahead and do it right, hence the railgrab purchase. The boatloader should hopefully solve my issue with loading the Cuda by myself when coming off the water. It is just an extension bar I can rest the front of the kayak on, then load the back on top the rack, basically giving me another set of hands. I like to load my boats upside down on the crossbars, without any saddles or other accessories. The paddle stager on both the Cuda and the Coosa fit the Yakima crossbars perfectly, so the boat sits pretty nicely directly on the crossbars.

Before:

After: