Kayak Fishing Tips for Beginners: How To Position Your Kayak
Learn how to position your kayak when fishing and shock your neighbors with the amount of fish you bring home. Positioning your kayak can be a night and day difference in your fishing experience. Let’s talk about it.
Kayak Fishing Tips for Beginners: How to Position and Anchor Your Fishing Kayak
Here are a few things to consider when positioning yourself.
- When you are near a laydown, you can place your kayak near the tree where it enters the water.
- Retrieve your bait parallel to the tree and repeat the cast along the opposite side of the laydown (sometimes pausing the retrieve and letting the bait drop can generate a strike from a fish hiding under the tree)
- Estimate the distance the laydown extends into the water, position your kayak around 20 feet out from it, and cast in the direction of the location where you estimate the submerged tree.
- If you are near a point, position your kayak straightaway so that you can cast to either side and start a fan-cast pattern (working your way to the opposite side of the point, which covers all the possible depths).
- When the fish is biting, you can make a note in your mind and identify the depth of the fish (which is good information when you fish at other points in the lake)
- When it’s windy, position your kayak on the leeward side of a point and cast into the wind with your bait reaching across the point.
- If there are lily pads or a weed bed, you should stop drifting and position yourself parallel to the weeds.
- Then use a weedless swimbait, let it sink, and retrieve it several times with frequent pulling motions on the fishing pole.
- The fish hiding there will see the bait motion and come out of hiding.
- In lily pads, use a weedless topwater frog. Cast it into the lily pads, let it drift, or slowly reel it back towards the kayak. It’s the same with grass.
- When windy, you want to use an anchor to keep your kayak from drifting away.
- Be mindful and think strategically about how you will approach and position yourself for every spot.