kayak slam

Happy Monday SpaceFish Family,

This past Saturday morning I was able to get out and fish a new spot – launching out of Long Point Park just north of Sebastian Inlet. I am not going to do a spot report today, because honestly I was not able to cover a lot of ground there Saturday (will report on the spot next week after I fish it again), but it was a very exciting morning of fishing – I caught my first ever “Grand Slam” – Snook, Redfish, Trout and Tarpon; which was very fulfilling and rewarding for me personally. But the most amazing part of it was I did it at a spot I have never fished, and did it with a lure I have never fished with. So that’s what I want to report on today. To borrow a line from Lord of the Rings…can there be one lure “to rule them all”?

I decided last week that I would spend a fishing trip committed to using hard baits. Something I have never really fished much. I am a soft plastic guy, but with the temperatures cooling and fish being easier to catch away from the mangroves, and in a more active mood chasing bait around with the mullet run – I decided this was as good of a time as ever to try a mullet imitating hard bait. The bait I used was the Yo-Zuri 3DS Minnow in their Mullet pattern, I used the 2 ⅜ inch – ¼ ounce model, I figured that imitating a smaller finger mullet would lead to more strikes and would give me a more clear indication of whether this bait would earn a place in my arsenal moving forward.

I feel like bait selection for the kayak angler is more nuanced than that of other anglers. For one, we need to be able to pack lightly and efficiently. I am not bringing a big tackle box aboard with me, I have a small fishing bag that I store behind me in the storage compartment between my seat and the cooler. All of my tackle, lures, leader, scissors, fish grippers, and pliers fit in that bag. I usually carry a small plano tackle tray with six compartments that I fill with 3 hard baits, weedless hooks, jig heads and my small swimbaits used to target Tarpon. I usually carry 3-5 bags of soft plastic lures, and 3 spools of leader, 14, 20, and 30 lb test. I usually carry an “oh sh*t” ziploc bag filled with other soft plastics that I keep in a dry box in the front of the kayak. The reason I call it that is because if I have to go in that bag, it means my gameplan isn’t working.

Beyond efficient packing, the other nuance to kayak bait selection is workability. When you are in a kayak as opposed to a boat/skiff, standing on a shoreline or wading in the flats, the type of lures and how well you can work them is a variable to account for. Kayak fishing in the Indian River Lagoon, our rivers, or even bass fishing in our lakes can be tricky when it comes to the wind, and how it moves the water. Straight retrieve lures are the best, fishing slow while your kayak is moving can be tricky, but lures like jerkbaits and walk the dog top waters come with an added level of difficulty as well; not impossible, and certainly time on the water in the kayak makes a world of difference, but I have found the more straight forward the lure retrieval, the more efficiently it can produce in the kayak.

Now for those that may be reading this and are in the market for a kayak; if the pedal drives are in your price range and what you are looking into, that can eliminate some of the aforementioned issues, but there are some drawbacks to a pedal drive in my opinion. The advantages are a more “hands free” approach, and being able to maintain a direction while casting and retrieving lures, but there can be some added complications when fishing in super skinny water, and it creates more underwater noise and disturbances. I can’t tell you how many times I have caught targeted species like Snook and Tarpon and actually seen them follow the lure to within feet of the kayak and take it right there beside the vessel. It takes a super quiet approach to be able to do that. But this is solely my opinion only! I think like anything in life, differences provide both advantages and disadvantages!

Back to making kayak angling lure selections, soft plastic swimbaits have been my go to, and what I fish probably 90% of the time on the water, but I have been on a quest to find my go-to hard baits to complete an effective inshore arsenal. So I took the Yo-Zuri 3DS Minnow for a spin, and man did it produce!

We have all heard the term “match the hatch” and this bait certainly does that. With it’s realistic mullet pattern, the 3D aspect of the lure shows up really well in the muddy water that is in the lagoon post Hurricane Ian, and once the sun came up it was able to catch and reflect light really well, which is realistic to what you see when a silver sided fish is near the surface and it catches the sun. This bait is a suspending model, but they also make floating plugs that dive on the retrieve, this model I used dives 1-2 feet, which make it a great bait for shallow shorelines, and flats. It was effective on a straight medium tempo retrieve, as well as a jerk-jerk-pause retrieve. I was able to complete the grand slam, with 3 of the 4 species pictured above. The Tarpon was not pictured because I caught it while wading after I took a break on a spoil island. I was actually collecting sea shells to bring back for my kids when I saw something chasing bait at a depth ledge about 20 yards off the island, of course I kept my rod with me while picking shells (you just never know what you’ll see while wading) and standing in knee deep water I casted right into the fray of bait being blown up on, I actually thought it was a Snook, but low and behold it was a Tarpon! I was able to walk with it down the shoreline of the island and let him run, and take his jumps, it was a healthy, well fed, girthy Juvenile Tarpon that I would guesstimate to be between 25-30 pounds. One of the thicker ones I have ever caught. The Snook and Reds were all caught along Mangrove shorelines with the hook ups happening between 1-5 yards off the mangroves, the Trout I caught were all hanging on depth changes around the boat channel going out into the lagoon. I caught 2 Trout, 2 Reds, 1 Tarpon (got hung on another), 6 Snook, 9 Jack Crevalle, 2 Lady Fish, and 1 Mangrove Snapper. None of the Trout, Redfish, or Snook I caught were all that big. After completing the slam with the Yo-Zuri bait, I fished a Gulp! Shrimp in New Penny color and caught a nice healthy Red, a few more small Snook, and hooked up with an absolutely massive breeder of a Snook on a weedless Gambler paddle tail, but was broken off on a fallen underwater tree. I casted the bait just beyond the tree and it hit it as soon as the bait ran parallel with the structure, and I was never able to get the fish away from it, and it broke off within a matter of seconds. I actually saw the fish before I casted, it was so big, I actually thought it was a log at first.

So my synopsis of the bait is, for fall fishing it is a really good lure selection. The only drawbacks being it catches a lot of smaller fish, but that has its place too, sometimes just getting a tight line and getting action can make for a very enjoyable day, and I am sure using the bigger models of this bait can be a great way to cull out the smaller fish, and catch bigger ones. If the small model offers quantity, the bigger models can offer quality. But I’ve also caught some really nice Reds and Snook on small baits as well, elephants do eat peanuts sometimes. The other drawback is snagging. Having two treble hooks increases the odds of snagging underwater debris, and even though predators are more active and roaming this time of year, there is still underwater debris to get snagged on, and having 6 hook points to snag, it will happen. One of the best methods I had for catching Snook this past weekend was casting parallel to the shoreline and retrieving the lure along the mangroves, anywhere from 1 yard to 5 yards out. As the sun got brighter and the Snook moved closer into the shrinking shade of the mangroves, my snagging on roots increased, but that’s also just part of the game. One last note about treble hooks, and why I will probably replace these with single inline hooks – dehooking a Tarpon with trebles was not a fun experience, he was not a happy camper and I had trouble controlling him with one hand and handling pliers with the other. I also lost an even better Tarpon due to spitting the lure, I did not feel like the trebles offered the same hook setting power into its bony mouth that a good strong inline hook does.

Conclusion: There are no magic pills, perfect lures in fishing. But this one is pretty close. Outside of a white paddle tail, this may be the lure you want to have tied on to find fish in a new area. All of the fish we target inshore will eat a 3 inch finger mullet if it swims in front of their face, and this bait is a great finger mullet imitation. It is easy to use, it is durable, and it stands out in dirty water, and has a natural presentation that should perform well for an angler in clean water