Well I found one of my fishes. I was out in my new kayak for the first time yesterday morning. I was testing my set up and bemoaning some of the choices of placement of my rod holder and paddle clips. I was casting and hoping to connect, but had no luck with one exception. That was this large bass, a Large Mouth Bass, a large, very large LMB by my standards anyway. I felt a light take and set the hook. At first I thought it was a snag. The hook did not move and in spite of all the pressure I put on it stayed stuck. Then the snag started to move a little and I realized it was not a snag, but something different. I started bringing in line and realized that this fish was bigger than most so I started putting all my line on the reel. All of a sudden something the size of cinder block splashed behind me. The 5x tppet was stressed to the max and after playing the fish or a while, avoiding one tangle with my anchor line and some back and forth I was able to bring this fish to the side of the boat. I made a major error and did not think of how I would land the fish. When he got along side the boat I held the leader to give me a chance to lip the fish and BAM he snapped the line like it was 8x and was gone. 5 minutes later my heart rate slowed enough to breath normally again and I paddled home. I estimate the fish to be well over 20 inches and consrvatively 4~5 lbs. That was the only bite of the day, but it was enough to make any other fish catching possibilities seem insignificant. If only I had taken a second and thought about how to land this beast with such a light tippet I would have been able to see her in all her beauty and gotten an acutal length.

Still, no complaints. Oh yeah, they kayak worked great. My back did not ache like it always did in my old kayak.

jed