My Hobie Outback Kayak with the Mirage Drive gets wet

The first voyage with my new Hobie Outback proved a wonderous kayaking experience. I spent the previous week modifying my new boat in anticipation of this first trip. Once I launched, put in the mirage drive and started pedaling, a new world opened up.

I was quickly going 3 and 4 miles per hour both up and downriver. I was able to turn on a dime and basically went anywhere I wanted. My first trip was in the bay off the Milwaukie boat ramp.

I pedaled for an hour looking for sturgeon on the finder but saw only salmon. When I did find a group of sturgeon on the bottom of the river, tossed the anchor. My modifications worked flawlessly and I was quickly anchored in the Willamette. I tossed the line in and immediately got hung up on the rocky bottom. I unhooked the anchor release line, retrieved the fishing line and easily went back upstream and retrieved the anchor. I decided to try another location downriver and again easily anchored up and started fishing.

What amazed me was the tremendous stability of the Hobie. My Redfish 10 is a stable boat, but those extra two feet made the Outback comfortable and safe regardless of how much I moved around. I have an info video of the modifications my YouTube Channel, Kayakflyangler.

I wanted to shout out a special thanks to Scappoose Bay Kayaking and Hobie for their help in getting me the boat. With the price of gas shooting up, I have a feeling I will be spending a lot more time fishing for spring chinook from my Outback than from my sled.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Starting The Season With A New Fleet

Image
The blog has received little love over the past year, so it was time to write a post. It's not that I have been fishing less, it's that I haven't taken the time to post and work on the videos. The 2022 salmon season was not nearly as epic as the 2021 season especially with the limited fall salmon season. This was mainly due to a unique hatchery Tule Chinook salmon return where the Spring Creek Hatchery upstream of Bonneville Dam had about 100,000 Chinook return - twice the average. The Tule is an endangered species in the rivers below Bonneville Dam and due to some complicated issues,  caused a closure in the lower Columbia River during the height of the season. Hobie PA17t The 2023 salmon season is off to an unseasonably cold start with winter holding on and March coming in like a lion and going out like a lion. No lambs this year. Hopefully better days await in April and beyond. I did reorganize my fleet buying and selling some kayaks while still ending up with a tandem, ...
Read more

A Productive Salmon Season in a Year of Low Returns

Image
This year has proven one of my best yet for putting salmon in the kayak. After a slow start in March and April, I hooked eight and landed six spring Chinook "Springers" on the Willamette River. All were hatchery fish and most were 30-plus inches. They were all caught with my red and orange hand-tied spinners and Pro-Troll 360 flashers. The Springers were caught in May and June, typically the end of the season. These two months seem to be my most productive. Two years ago, I landed six, and had two, two-fish days. This year, I never hooked two fish on the same day, although I had more days catching fish. Most days were spent focusing on the tide changes, and I was usually off the water by noon. I was fortunate because the run was about 25 percent lower than expected and many anglers had a rough season. I spent July fishing for smallmouth bass in the Willamette and Columbia, and spent a few days in August anchored in the Columbia fishing for fall kings. The fall season p...
Read more

Published again! More great news for kayak fly fishing!

Image
My Kayak Guys column in the March 2018 Northwest Sportsman.  The magazine is available in stores across the region as well as  online through the digital subscriptions . Late last year, one of the local kayak fishing pioneers, Mark Veary, requested story ideas for the regional publication, Northwest Sportsman . The ideas needed to focus on kayak fishing and would either be columns or feature stories. I jumped at the chance and suggested an article on kayak fly fishing, telling Mark, I would base the story on my fishing presentation. He liked the idea and we settled on the March issue. The issue would be perfect to talk about trout fishing from the kayak since March typically marks the lake opening of trout season in Oregon.  In late January, I sent my first draft which came back with the basic edits. I updated the story and it was sent to the NWS editor. I was concerned about photos because I focus on video rather than stills while kayak fly fishing. In...
Read more