Handline Assembly for Kayak Fishing

Here's some info on the handline rig I've been using to fish from my kayak.  I got the design from my friend Marc who introduced me to his fishing grounds.  This kind of rig makes it possible to fish from a sit-inside kayak.  You don't need a sit on top with rod holders, bait wells, fish hatches, etc. etc.
Much of the complexity of commercially sold kayak fishing setups comes from the fact that the industry wants to sell gear.  It's that simple, and guys being guys want to buy gear.  But you don't need all that much gear.
So here it is, the handline rig.

This photo shows the rig which consists of a wooden spool, 200 feet of  300lb braided spectra line, 8 feet of  60 pound mono leader, a  12 oz sinker assembly with swivel hooks followed by 4 feet of 40 pound mono leader snelled to a 5/0 circle hook.

This is what the rig looks like set up for transportation.  Fits nicely in a one gallon ziploc plastic bag. If the wire of the sinker assembly were a little shorter, it would store even better.  This rig has 250 lb braided line with an 8 ounce sinker.

And here's a schematic of the handline assembly.  Some additional comments on the schematic.  The 300 pound braided line comes in various lengths, but 100 meters is a good spool size, that's about 300 feet of line.  You can wind half of that on your spool or even all of it, depending on how deep you want to fish.
The spool itself is made out of wood. A scrap piece of one by six will do fine.  Before you commit to any dimensions, try wrapping your hands around a length of wood that is 3/4" thick by 1-1/4" wide and has the edges rounded. If the wood needs to be wider or narrower to feel comfortable in your hand, adjust the dimensions on the spool accordingly.  If the long dimension of the spool is longer than 8 inches, you need fewer turns to spool up the line when you're retrieving a fish.  On the other hand, a longer dimension will put more torque on your wrist.
The length of the sinker assembly, which consists of a piece of coat hanger or heavy gauge copper electrical wire with a sinker attached to it  should be about the same as the length of your wooden spool.  This makes it easier to wind up for storage.  Weight of the sinker should be roughly one ounce for every ten feet of depth you are fishing.  That would be 10 oz for 100 feet of line, for instance.  Rate of drift and weight of main line also makes a difference.  You want your line to be as vertical as possible so you can know how close you are to the bottom.  This is where a drift chute comes in handy if there is a wind blowing.  The drift chute slows down your kayak and allows the line to hang more vertical.  Some drift is ok, but you don't want your line going out at 45 degrees.
Snap swivels should have a breaking strength at least that of the lines they are tied to, in our case, at least 50 lbs.  I bought some that were 150 lbs which is overkill.  Overkill is ok sometimes, but the 150 lb wire snaps are pretty hard to get open with bare hands, especially cold bare hands.  And carrying pliers in a kayak is a nuisance.
The idea with this rig is that when you are fishing rock reefs where there is a possibility of snags,  you want the leader to break and lose maybe your hook and bait but not your sinker.  You can carry more snelled hooks and bait, but the sinkers assemblies are more bulky and you want to avoid losing them.  Worst case, you snag the sinker and the 60 pound leader breaks, but you still have your main line.
All the knots mentioned in the schematic can be found on the internet and youtube.  I tried using a double uni knot to tie the 60 pound mono leader to the 300 pound but the mono line was too stiff in comparison to the braided line so that the knot didn't work and ended up using an Albright knot which worked fine.  It takes a while to get the hang of some of these knots especially if you are watching a bad youtube or if you are working with stiff monofilament, but practice pays off.
Thanks again to Marc who taught me this stuff.

The lincod is resting on a plastic rice bag which I keep in my lap when fishing and into which I shove the fish that I catch.  

And here's some fish caught by handline, lincod, and two rockfish.  The little guy is bait herring.  These guys were caught with octopus for bait.

Deckline Mods to my Sixteen Foot Baidarka to Facilitate Fishing

After going out fishing in my 16 foot baidarka I decided to make some mods to the decklines to make it a better fishing boat.  The mods were not extensive but addressed two particular aspect of the existing rigging that could be improved.  One mod improved the ability to stow paddles on the foredeck.  The other mod improved my ability to get out of the boat quickly after landing on the beach. Let's go to the pictures.

 This photo shows a new addition, a longish piece of wood on the left (port) side of the boat. This used to be a feature on Unangan kayaks.  The piece of wood protects the skin from chafing by the fishing line when fisherman pulls in a fish.  Chafing of the skin is probably not as big a deal with a synthetic fabric skin as it is with a sea lion skin, but I thought it might be a good idea to have this feature in any case.

 Deck toggles, the two rectangular piece of wood on either side of the kayak are used to tighten up the deck lines that hold spare paddles in place on the deck.  I moved these closer to the front of the cockpit for easier access.

Here's a closeup of another deck toggle roughly in the shape of a little sea creature.  This is meant to keep a paddle from sliding off the deck when the paddle is just laid on the deck instead of being tucked under the deck lines.

One of the problems when landing in surf is the timing of the waves.  Even if you time the waves coming in and come in on the back of a wave and make a smooth beach landing, you have to get out of the kayak quickly because the next wave is coming in and is likely to pull you back into the surf.  This is especially problematic on steep beaches. With the size of this cockpit and with a lap full of fish, jumping out of the kayak is not easy.  I have to hoist myself up onto the back deck so I can step out of the cockpit.  I do this by placing my hands on the gunwales back of the cockpit and raising myself up.  Unfortunately, the deck is sloped an my hands tent to slide off, so I added toggles in back of the cockpit for a better grip.
If you're paying attention, you will also notice that I added another rub guard on the starboard side of the cockpit.  I thought that might also help with getting in and out of the boat.
And finally, I ran another line between the two deck toggles to keep them from sliding off the edge of the gunwales when I'm hoisting myself out of the cockpit.  I tested all this on the ground. I have yet to try it out on the water where it counts.

And finally, I formalized the padding in the cockpit.  Previously I just had a foam pad in the bottom of the boat.  I still only have a foam pad on the bottom of the boat, but now I cut it in half and doubled up on the bottom and tied it to the ribs and I also added a piece of foarm as a backrest.  This should help with sitting for hours while fishing.
More on the water testing is forthcoming. Stay tuned.

Handlining from a Kayak

Two kayak fishermen took me out fishing with them.  I was under the impression that to fish from a kayak you needed lots of gear like rod-holders and landing nets and places to put fish in case you caught some etc. etc.  Turns out that according to my mentors, you don't need most of that stuff.  You don't need rod holders because you don't need a rod and reel to fish from a kayak.  A kayak puts you right on top of the fish and so you don't need a rod to fling your bait or lure out away from your kayak to where the fish are.  The fish are under you and so you just lower the line with the bait into the water below you and the fish bite on your bait.  It's that simple.  The reason this works is that the fish are some distance below you and so they are not spooked as they would be if you just had six feet of water under you. When you have 100 feet of water under you the fish can't see you.
So we went fishing and caught fish.  The reason we caught fish is that one of my mentors had a gps that took us back to a reef where he had caught fish before. His electronic gizmo also had sonar that showed him what the bottom looks like.  We were going for rock fish which hang out over rocks.  If you're fishing where there are no fish, you catch no fish.  Most likely you blame yourself or your bait but the real reason you caught no fish is that you were fishing where there were no fish.
And now for some pictures.

Here's the Pacific at 7 a.m. Not much wind but some shore break from 3 foot swells.

Our put-in point on a shelf some fifty feet above the beach.  Portaging of the kayaks was required.

My host's fish counter. The leg of the string on the left is total fish caught. The leg on the right tracks a different species that has a different limit from the run of the mill rockfish.

The rig, 300 pound braided line with a lead weight and some hooks wound on a wooden spool. What could be simpler?

I should mention something that I noticed before when starting to fish with my canoe is that fishing changes your relationship with your boat and the place where you take your boat out.  Fishing, in this case changed my view of my kayak as a means of putting me into the ocean's food chain, one step above the rock fish but still one step below the sharks that live in the Pacific.  As a consequence, I made some mods to my kayak to make it a better fishing boat.  More on that in a separate post.