Late last year, my wife, Nannette, and I decided we needed to get
outside
and away from our home a bit, and found ourselves in EMS staring at
some
kayaks. Our local EMS was having a sale, and Nannette has always been
attracted to any store posting that four letter word. So much the
better
that it was EMS this time, and after some discussion, we purchased an
Ocean Kayak Malibu II 2 person sit-on-top (SOT) kayak, some seat
cushions, and
paddles. Already had a couple of PFDs at home. The Malibu II is not
anything
like a touring kayak, and being a 2 person SOT it was relatively heavy
at around 60lbs bare. However, it had clips and a molded area for
paddling
solo and seemed like the best compromise at the time.
Of course, Nannette and I both knew that my intention was to use this
platform
for fishing but that was left unsaid. So much the better

Well, schedule at work and with family such that they are, I didn't
really
set out on any kayak fishing expeditions last year. We managed to
explore some
lakes, take it out to the surf a couple of times to do some bombing
around in the waves, explored a backwater tidal area at a local
Wildlife Management Area, and basically just enjoyed some very very
peaceful days on the water.

This year found ever new challenges in getting out, however, I have
managed 2 excursions out onto Raritan/Sandy Hook Bays looking for
action. I armed myself with 2 fly rods: a 9wt with WF intermediate and
a 10wt with type 7 full sink.
For most sal****er fishing in this area, I've typically limited myself
to a variety of baitfish attractor streamers: jiggies, clousers,
deceivers, usually 1/0 or 2/0 hooks, although I drop down to size 4 or
6 if wanting to pick up the smaller bluefish that frequent the bay,
just for some action. A number of flies were smaller intended to
imitate the bay anchovies that are snacks for the more pelagic species
that come bombing into the bays in the late summer/early fall
timeframe. The 2 times I did go out, however, those species were no
where around.

This has been a "strange" year in the NY/NJ metro area, weather wise.
We've come through the warmest summer on record, and the end of the
summer
into the early fall found us in a drought condition. Of course, all
that
ended with the coastal storm hanging around the past 8 days.
The warm weather, and lack of rain, has caused salinity and temperature
combinations such that otherwise "southern" species have been caught
(primarily by bait anglers) such as drum, weakfish, even some specled
trout, triggerfish, a number of different species of rays, all the way
up to this past week before the storm. One fellow accidentally snagged
an 87lb black drum! The pelagics and bigger bluefish were actually
still offshore the two times I went out by kayak, and just came
inshore. We'll see what will be there when everything clears up next
week, most likely morone saxitalis will finally make a decent showing.

Nevertheless, I went out on the kayak making sure that everything was
either tucked or secured to avoid the ever present danger of dropping
something into the drink: rod, pliers, camera whatever. Navigating out
in the Raritan / Sandy Hook bays can be treacherous for an arm-powered
craft when you realize that everyday of the week and on regular
schedules there are high-speed ferries, commercial vessles navigating
the deep channels near the tip of the hook, the ever present party-boat
fleets out of virtually every port along the northern bayshore, as well
as the weekend warriors in various sized powered craft.

My fishing can be summarized as drifting / paddling around looking for
top water action, while letter the full sink line trail behind. I never
did, on these 2 trips, get any "bottom" species but rather ran into
bluefish of various sizes from true snappers at 6" long up to the large
cocktails/smaller taylors around 2-3 lbs. It's interesting to note that
the larger blues fight very different on a flyrod when they have a lot
of water to run around in, rather than the constrictions of being
pulled to shore when targetting them by foot.
Truth be told, I was overgunned for these sized fish, but at least the
bluefish are scrappy enough to put a bend in the rod.

Some very important kayaking lessons were learned however:
1. SOT kayaks, and mine in particular, are tremendous wind vanes.
Riding solo, the craft sits high in the water, and with my weight
distributed to the rear of center provided a pivot point such that
paddling into a stiff wind was *quite* a challenge.

2. Time the tide. http://www.troop26bsa.net/maps/sandy_hook.gif I put
in on the western shore of the area of sandy hook where the big black
arrow is (approximately) and drifted out on the high-outgoing tide
around the tip of the hook. When I had to come back the wind was out of
the east providing a wind against tide situation creating some fairly
fantastic standing waves around the rips that are out there, however
once turning the tip toward my put in point, the wind shifted south!
Therefore I was paddling against current and wind (see point #1). This
could have been prevented to a certain degree by putting in at this
location much closer to low tide and using the current shift in my
favor for both directions.

3. watch the weather. specifically wind.
4. get an anchor and/or drift sock. One problem I ran into was an
extremely fast drift due to current and wind when fighting or trying to
reach fish...
These also would have been helpful when coming back in, after paddling
for an hour and a half against wind and current, I was ready to take a
break but any break cost me so much real-estate that I really couldn't
afford it.

Much more I could write, but I'll just cut this rather long post.

In all, hope to get out 1 or 2 more times when the bigger stripers are
in the bay. There is still some hope of finding False Albacore, and our
striper run really hasn't started yet... I'm not planning on hitting
the ocean surf this year, I've been told (and do understand) that I
really need a decent dry top....espcially once the water temps drop a
bit.

One other use for the kayak will be in pursuit of searuns. There is a
large
brackish tidal area which can only be accessed by yak or canoe where a
lot of the (stocked) sea run browns stage prior to running up a local
river... from what I've heard