Titusville, Florida Mosquito Lagoon January Kayak Fishing Trip

One of the first kayak fishing trips of the new year with my buddy Brendan.  Both of us were using Slayer SST lures in the molting and chicken off the chain colors.  Brendan was in his new(ish) Native Ultimate 14.5 and I was in my Jackson Big Tuna.  I just got a Shimano Saros reel and man it was like butter reeling anything in with that reel and also working my Slayer Lures.  Video is just over 2 minutes long Im still working on improving my video skills. 

Lures used for the day were Slayer SST molting and
chicken off the chain on a 1/16oz weighted Slayer 3/0 hook

me ( Jelly Jon ) with one of my Trout from the day aboard my
Jackson Kayak Big Tuna.

Another night trip in the Mosquito Lagoon Tandem in the Big Tuna

While wondering when my next outing would be I received a call from Austin and Paul asking if I would like to do some night fishing with them in Titusville.  I had two of my friends Brendan and Mike recently ask me if they could check out the sport of kayak fishing so I decided tonight was as good a night as any other.  I ended up riding tandem with my buddy Mike and my other friend Brendan paddled a borrowed a Tarpon 160.  Little did I know my valentines day would come early... haha

It was a cold cold night when we decided to start our late night adventure.  We saw a few kayak anglers we knew on the water and broke off and met back up with them several times through the night.  For the most part everyone was skunked except on tiny trout.  We used an array of live and dead bait (no artificial bait) and finally my buddy Brendan hooked up to something.  This was his first hook up ever in a kayak so he at first exclaimed  "I think Im hooked up to that flats boat!!" but then he realized he was hooked up to a bull red.  After about a 20 minute battle he landed his 32" redfish.

Soon after the wind picked up and it felt like the temperature dropped about 30 degrees.  After freezing the whole way back to the put in paddling as fast as we could we were strapping the boats to our trucks and looking for who was open at 2am for a late dinner.  Check out the pictures below,

Brendan with his first Bull Red and also FIRST fish caught as a Kayak
Fisherman.  Hopefully everything from here on out is bigger! haha

Picture taken of Me and Mike in the Jackson Big Tuna from a Malibu
Stealth 14 captained by Austin.  Paul decided riding tandem is such a
magical moment it calls for a box of valentines day candy.

Freshwater bass fishing tandem in the Jackson Kayak Big Tuna

Took out the Big Tuna with my wife and daughter to do some freshwater bass fishing.  I was real curious how well it would handle with both my wife and daughter in the front area with the live well filled with bait fish.

Was a great time between just hanging out and watching my daughter feed crumpled up crackers to the shad and minnows in the live well.  With no holes drilled in the live well area the bait fish stayed alive for the entire trip, I wasnt really keeping track but at least a couple hours.  There were about 1 dozen plus medium shad and 2 dozen minnows.  I really need to get around to putting the holes in the live well.

bait/lure: mostly live shad and threw a slayer SSB occasionally.

conditions: slightly windy nothing difficult to paddle against maybe 5mph, pretty chilly about 50-60 degrees

Ally and Averie with a Bass

Me with a Bass

Overall Ive been pretty impressed with how this boat handles in the face time tandem setup.  I bring one paddle with me when the boat is setup like this so that there is only one paddle to manage in the kayak.    With just me paddling it is pretty easy to maneuver the kayak and get it up to a decent speed with someone up front.  The kayak also stays surprisingly loose which is great for handling with someone up front.  In addition to me paddling in the back at about 200 pounds I have had an up front passenger that weighs 150lbs and also 190lbs.  Im not sure what the combined weight of my wife and daughter were and no, Im not going to ask.... haha.

Mosquito Lagoon at Night - Tandem in the Big Tuna Jackson Kayak

who: My kayak angler buddy Justin called me and said he wanted to hit the lagoon at night time (Wednesday Dec. 19th). He couldn't get his kayak on the water so he asked me if I would mind going tandem in the Big Tuna.  I have not had a chance to hit a lake with my wife in the Jackson Big Tuna yet so I figured this would be a great opportunity to see how this boat performs with another experienced angler.  I did not feel like moving the seat holders from solo mode (since Im generally by myself) so that meant the front seat was in the "face time" position.  In addition to us we ended up meeting up with Chuck and Pepi at the put-in.

conditions: There was pretty much no wind at all and the current was just about nonexistent for most of the night.  We were on the water from about 7:30pm until about 1:00am

bait/lure: live shrimp

After slow drifting and working an area typically known to produce a bunch of us had our bait taken but spit out a few times.  By the time we packed up and left (after about 4 hours) Pepi and I both caught some dirty sail cats with Chuck catching one redfish and Justin was the real winner of the night catching two pretty big redfish (pictures below next paragraph).

thoughts on the Jackson Big Tuna in Tandem:  Since we were in the face time position only one of us could effectively paddle at a time.  This was actually good to know because now when I go with my wife Ally I for sure intend to only bring one paddle.  Additionally access to the live well would be pretty much impossible to the front person if they are facing forward. Other then that the boat paddled pretty well with the two of us, Id say between us and our gear plus the live well filled we had close to 430-440 pounds in the boat(maybe more).    Im real curious to try this boat in regular tandem but I was pleased with how it went in the facetime position.  I will probably post a more in depth facetime tandem review with pictures when I go out with my wife on a lake.

Justin's first Red of the night in the Jackson Big Tuna.
Check out that Bigfin Apparel performance shirt

Justin's second Red of the night in the Jackson Kayak
Big Tuna

Fishing report Banana River Florida

who: Went out Sunday the 16th of December with a few fellow kayak fisherman from the SCKA kayak club.  Spent most of the day fishing with fellow anglers Wade and Michael but Paul and another guy later joined us on the return paddle.

conditions: The conditions when I checked online before were set to be 5-10mph from the south.  Once I hit the water it ended up being completely still until a little after noon a wind came from the south at around 5mph.  Throughout the day we took a very light almost misty rain about 3 separate times but none lasted for over 15 minutes.

lures/bait: For a while fellow kayak anglers have been talking about slayer soft plastics so I decided to give them a try.  Alan, Pepi and Redfish Chuck turned me onto the bait and while I was at Kayaks by Bo Chuck suggested a few to me to try.  On the 3/0 hook w/ 1/16 weighted hook I rigged the SSB molting and that is what I used most of the day.  I also did a few cast with the "chicken off the chain" colored SST.  All the fish I caught were on the SSB "molting" color though today.

SSB Slayer Lure Inc molting color

what happened: So Im still fairly new to kayak fishing however I ended up having one of my better days on the water today.  Hopefully partly due to how much Ive been learning lately but also maybe partly due to my new Slayer Lures.  You have your story I have mine.  I ended up catching my first snook, though he was pretty small and my other notable catches were two trout over 20", 21" and 22".  All in all Id say I had a pretty good day in my Jackson Big Tuna.

My first snook

My second 20"+ trout of the day

Picked up the NEW Jackson Big Tuna kayak

So Ive been in the market for a new fishing kayak lately and since Im somewhat partial to Jackson since Ive loved their whitewater boats so much since the company’s inception I decided to check out the Big Tuna.

Ive had the Cuda before but since I do offshore kayak fishing I really liked the idea of having a built in live well.  In addition to a live well itd be nice to take my wife Ally out with me in the same boat when we do freshwater so its easier to talk and hang out with our 3 year old daughter.  When I saw the Big Tuna could turn into a capable solo boat I knew I had to check it out.

Review with video to come.

Will do a comparison of the boats Ive paddled to this one to see if that helps anyone relate to it more.  I will compare it to my Tarpon, Cuda 14 and Stealth 14.  Obviously all of this will be based on my opinions and experiences only...