Category Archives: Kayak Fishing Posts

Check My Stats: Why Mack is the Best Kayak Bass Fishery in North Carolina

23 Wednesday Apr 2025

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Hypothesis

This article asks the question: which is the best Largemouth Bass fishery for kayak tournaments in central North Carolina?

Let’s take a closer look at the question. First, it asks which is the best bass fishery for kayak tournaments. Therefore, the lake must be 1) publicly accessible to kayak launches and 2) able to accommodate a reasonable number of kayaks. So, small lakes and ponds are out of the question. One might also eliminate much larger lakes (I won’t). The majority of kayak tournaments are held on mid-to-large sized lakes in the state. Let’s say 1,000 surface acres/50 shoreline miles and up. That’s our general range.

Now, the second part of the hypothesis. The question introduces a valuation (“best”) that can have multiple quantitative measurements (not to mention qualitative explanations). There is no way to prove which lake is “best” in a definitive way. Do you measure weight? Length? Year class? Forage base? Catch frequency? Harvest numbers? To do so, you would have to sample and survey every mid-sized public lake in the state at the same time, crunch data, analyze the numbers, create charts and spread sheets, explain your methods, etc. You would need more scientists, electro-shock boats and funds for such a project than any entity currently has, and by the time you finished the job the lakes would all have changed.

The best you get is an estimate. And you know what? That’s still pretty good. After review of five years of evidence (2020-2024), I believe the answer is clear.

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Learning the Water: Kayak Tournament Fishing at Jordan Lake

10 Thursday Aug 2023

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The Question

In previous articles in this series, I described El Dorado (Shearon Harris), The North Pole (Falls Lake) and the Mississippi (Mackintosh).  Local anglers have greeted each article with either praise or with sneers. It seems that they worry that I am going to ruin a lake or that I will give away their best spots. As a result of the complaints, I started reaching out to anglers to give them assurances and obtain clearances. This only seems to have made folks even more paranoid.

Fear and paranoia create the appropriate mood for the fourth and final lake in this series. Jordan Lake is a fishery that inspires terror. There is no other way to put it.

A few examples:

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Learning the Water: Kayak Tournament Fishing at Lake Mackintosh

16 Sunday Jul 2023

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Learning the Water: Kayak Tournament Fishing at Lake Mackintosh

I. The Question

Some lakes are like old schoolmates or a friendly teacher who lives nearby; we just don’t see them all too often. When we do see them, we feel good. We leave after the visit and ask “Why don’t I visit more frequently?” Perhaps it’s because if we did, the magic might wear off. We would have too many good times and the rest of life would pale by comparison. In short, we’d become spoiled.

Or it might be that no matter how many times we go back, we always have a good time. The friendship gets stronger and every day is a new adventure. Even the quiet days are memorable. That’s being spoiled, too, in a good way.

Mackintosh, I confess, has spoiled me in the latter way. As we will see, some important kayak tournament fishing moments in North Carolina happened on the lake – and not only for me. The lake has shaped me and us like a good teacher does – it forms us, challenges us and makes learning a pleasure.

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Fish Psych 101: Reflections on a Hot Streak (part II)

05 Friday May 2023

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Overview

During the darkest hour of the recent pandemic, I started reading articles about sports psychology. It began with an article on the BBC news website about a phenomenon known as “Quiet Eye” that can be identified in certain elite athletes (I’ll have more to say about that in another post). It continued from there through sports journalism, scientific studies and science writing in various media. In short, I started to wonder how current research and concepts might apply to tournament fishing.

For example, I started asking questions about what’s happening in my body when I am fishing. How is physical exhaustion related to mental fatigue? What are my eyeballs doing in relation to what my hands are doing? Can I identify patterns of movement and thought – decisions I make – from my body language and movements in the countless hours of video I record? What is my brain doing? I began noticing things, and I started writing them up.

This second installment in my “Fish Psych 101” series is actually a sequel to the first article I wrote on the topic, which I posted last season.  In that article, I began asking questions about how types of brain activity might correlate with results in tournament fishing.

Here, I dive into the recent tournaments since that streak in late 2022, waters I fished, and my general mindset. I may be starting to elaborate a theory about “confidence” that goes against the grain of what I hear in most conversations about tournament fishing. What I know for certain is that something dramatic has changed in how I approach the water, mentally speaking.

As before, I am elaborating basic concepts and attempting to summon questions more than I am deciphering answers. At times, I feel like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Goethe’s poem, and I can’t quite figure out how to control the spell. Nonetheless, I make the cast.

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Learning the Water: Kayak Tournament Fishing in Falls Lake

20 Monday Mar 2023

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I. The Question

Fishing is an acquired skill. Like just about anything else worth doing, it requires practice. Some people are quick to learn the art of casting and tying knots, others require time to learn the basics. Some simply give up. I was tempted on several occasions, before I even began fishing from a kayak, let alone tournament fishing. It’s much easier to just watch people catch fish on television.

In order to fish competitively, you also have to learn about gear, techniques for specific types of fishing and also how to fish certain waters. Add in kayaks, with their specialization and physical effort, and you can understand why some folks buy a bass boat. If you are going to leave on an expedition to the North pole, you want to be prepared, or else (see the Franklin Expedition). Kayak fishing is not easy.

I know. As I said, I learned it all the hard way. I competed in kayak tournaments for nine years without a 1st place finish. Over the past three seasons, I have had five of them on four different lakes (Jordan, Shearon Harris, Mackintosh and Falls). Each one of those lakes is a different animal, and I have been fishing them all for the past fifteen years (and in the case of Jordan, even longer). It’s time to reflect.

Having failed in many trips to the North Pole, explorers eventually found it. Falls Lake has been that sort of lake for me. The effort has been worth the risk.

For the purposes of this article, I will focus only on Falls Lake. While some of what I write here applies to the others, it is limited as to how much it translates. “How to learn the water?” has no predictable answer – it’s a question you have to ask every day you fish.

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Fish Psych 101: Reflections on a Hot Streak (I)

11 Sunday Sep 2022

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Overview

During the darkest hour of the recent pandemic, I started reading articles about sports psychology. It began with an article on the BBC news website about a phenomenon known as “Quiet Eye” that can be identified in certain elite athletes, but also in mediocre athletes who suddenly go on a “streak” (I’ll have more to say about that in another post). My interest in that article led me to more sources: sports journalism, scientific studies and science writing in various media. In short, I started to wonder how contemporary writings about sports psychology might apply to tournament kayak fishing.

I started asking questions about what’s happening in my body when I am fishing. How is physical exhaustion relation to mental fatigue? What are my eyeballs doing in relation to what my hands are doing? Can I identify patterns of movement and thought – decisions I make – from the countless hours of video I record? What is my brain doing? I began noticing things, and I started writing them up.

This first installment uses a recent run of good results as a starting point to explore some of those questions.  Maybe I’m jinxing myself by reflecting on it during the hot streak, but I’m not superstitious (unless it’s my football team). I’m also trying to figure out how it happened after a major surgery that seems to have cleared my mind as my body healed. It seemed counter-intuitive: wouldn’t my recovery impede strong performances. Or did the extended period of trauma and recovery do something that helped me succeed on the water?

I’ll introduce some terminology and basic concepts, then proceed to results and speculation. I have no preconceived notions; like stars in the night sky, curiosity and experience guide me.

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Kayak Fishing: Wading, Portaging and Fishing in Fast Water

15 Friday Apr 2022

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Introduction

How do you navigate fast, shallow water in a fishing kayak? And how do you fish that water? It isn’t always simple or easy. Prior to a recent tournament on Falls Lake in North Carolina, I consulted the USGS gauges for the rivers on the north end of the lake. There had been some rain, but not too much, and I wondered if some of the resident fish might be active due to food and oxygenated water flowing downstream. So I decided to give it a shot.

I prepared for some expected obstacles and eventualities, and improvised along the way. The result? A 7th place finish in a field of 57 anglers. Afterward, I made a short post about it on social media. The response was extensive and positive so I decided to expand the post in order to share more details about the effort, problem solving and safety tips involved in fishing this particular type of water.

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Kayak Fishing in Carolina Country Magazine

07 Monday Mar 2022

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As more anglers take up paddles and fish from a kayak, more companies take notice. Outdoors media now regularly feature kayak anglers in their publications, a sure sign that our sport is growing and reaching new audiences.

In North Carolina, we have one of the oldest and most well organized kayak fishing scenes in the United States. The sport has grown here at a grassroots levels through clubs and trails and tournaments, attracting the attention of outdoors writers.

In this article below, outdoors writer Mike Zlotnicki interview me for a profile in the January 2022 issue of Carolina Country magazine. It’s a profile of me, but also our sport. Click the magazine title or the full link below, and please share it to spread the word!

https://www.carolinacountry.com/issues/2022/departments/nc-outdoors/quiet-competition-the-joys-of-kayak-fishing-tournaments

Back-Tracking, Double-Guessing & Sloth: Notes from a CKA Event on the Cape Fear River

27 Monday Jul 2020

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Saturday, July 25th, 2020.

The forecast says baste your hide and prepare to be cooked.

When I arrived at the launch site there was a truck parked there, but it wasn’t Drew Blair’s truck. A man emerged from the woods dragging a kayak from the direction of the river, his headlight beam a cloud of insects.

“This isn’t the start I was expecting.”

My second thought was “Where the hell is Drew?” A short conversation later, and I said goodbye to Mitch, the woodsman, who gave up on the launch site. “That’s a rough launch” he said. I offered to help Mitch because I knew, deep in my heart, that Drew was asleep and I wasn’t going to make it alone. He always sleeps in on tournament day. Sure enough, a phone call confirmed it. Thankfully, he lives nearby. Mitch declined.

I waited in the dark for a bit. There wasn’t any morning breeze. I wondered if there was any air. I hoped to hide from the bugs in the darkness, but they found me. I was standing still but I was sweating. The sun would rise in 30 minutes. Drew, half asleep, rolled up and tried to use his Jedi mind powers to make the Hobie slide off his truck.

I’ve launched from difficult locations. This one ranked near the top of the list. The weeds were waist high, ruts in the abandoned road were knee deep and the drop from the bank to the water was actually two separate drops that added up to a Cubist painting. After launching, I realized that one of my rods left one of my lures somewhere in a tree branch behind us.

This isn’t an essay about how good I am at my favorite sport. It’s about a hot river and a cold bite. It’s about the risks I take, the decisions I make and the company I keep. It’s about admitting nature doesn’t care about your fishing plan – or any plan for that matter.

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One Path among many, but only One Boat: On Joining the Jackson Fishing Team

27 Thursday Feb 2020

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Beginnings contain more than an intention. When we start on something new, we bring to it our history, or memory, and culture. We add to it our desire and we imagine what might be. We peer at the horizon and dream to see what might be there, but we can never truly know. Beginnings are that too – they are possibilities, only some of which become real.  In his wonderful book Invisible Cities, the writer Italo Calvino imagines Marco Polo entertaining Kublai Khan with stories while the two men play chess. One story begins; “The man who is traveling and does not yet know the city awaiting him along his route wonders what the palace will be like, the barracks, the mill, the theater, the bazaar.” When he arrives, he finds a different city.

Like me, Marco Polo was an Italian of Venetian descent, a wandered on water and land, a person who, when he saw the griffin carrying the tablet the Lord delivered to Saint Mark, paused. I am partial to his Travels not only for their beauty and imagination but because they were written as if each word were a stage of the journey. At times, you never quite know where they will lead. Sometimes we move in straight lines or at angles. At others we move on tracks adjacent to the ones we had planned, a step removed from some other possible reality. Sometimes the paths intersect, at others they diverge. We might even come full circle. Continue reading →