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Stealth Kayak Fishing (Guest Article)
A Beginner’s Guide to Maneuvering and Safety
by Jeff "Yakfish" Little

The two major advantages of fishing from a kayak are access to small or skinny water, and the ability to sneak up on a fish. The accessibility issue is very well covered by a book that Tim Holschlag wrote entitled Stream Smallmouth Fishing. He also goes into detail about how to sneak up on fish. This article will discuss sneaking from a kayaker's perspective. Also, safety will come into play because when you dump your yak, the fish tend to notice your presence.

All novice kayakers should take a beginning whitewater course and a swift water rescue course. These courses are offered by local Canoe Cruiser's Associations throughout the United States. Many local outfitters also offer whitewater training for beginners. Reading this article about the hazards that you will encounter will not replace the experience of having an instructor put you in a semi-controlled hazardous environment and teaching you what to do.

If you dump, knowing what to do can mean the difference between getting crushed by your own boat, and just hopping back in and having a successful fishing trip. There are two major actions that should be an automatic response to falling in the water. First, position yourself upstream of the boat. Then point your feet downstream with your toes out of the water. After these two tasks are done, then you can start to worry about all of your expensive fishing gear that is rapidly sinking to the bottom of the river. The reason why you want the kayak downstream of you is that if you wash up on a rock and the kayak washes up behind you, the water pressure put on the boat by the current can be thousands of pounds - like having a car drop on you. Putting your feet downstream of you with your toes out of the water will prevent your feet and legs from becoming entrapped in rocks at the bottom of the river. If this entrapment happens, the force of the water will probably keep your head under water. You should drift through the swift current until you reach calmer water to stand up in. Let your fishing buddy go after your paddle, boat, and gear.

The large submerged branch upstream of the author is an example of a strainer

The first hazard that dunked me in the water was a strainer. A strainer is usually a tree branch that is partially submerged in current. Other obstacles can act as strainers, too. Some farmers will fence off a section of their riverfront to minimize the erosion caused by their cattle drinking from the river. The fencing that goes into the river is also a strainer. So a strainer is anything that remains stationary with water passing through it. They are dangerous because they will stop you, tumble you, then hold your head under water. Scouting rough areas, portaging, choosing an alternative route, or following someone who knows that particular area, can help you avoid strainers. In whitewater kayaking courses, instructors teach a sign language using paddles that can warn other members of the group of upcoming hazards.

If you find yourself in the water approaching a strainer, abandon the previously mentioned feet first, toes out of water position, and try to swim away from the strainer. If the strainer is unavoidable, swim at it, and pull yourself up onto it quickly. Contacting the strainer feet first will always result in your head being the lowest part of you in the water. Add that to being stuck in the branches of a strainer, and you will soon drown. The swift water rescue instructor who taught me, set up a 10 inch PVC pipe that was floating at the surface, but anchored to the bottom. This represented a strainer. Each of the members of the class was told to try to get over the strainer feet first. Afterward, he let us know that he had never seen anyone do it successfully in many years of instruction.

Rob Carey drops over a ledge, parallel to the flow and perpendicular to the drop

Another more common obstacle is a rock in current. In order to get through a whitewater area safely, the kayak should be parallel to current, and perpendicular to any drops. This approach minimizes the number of times a boat gets stuck on a rock in current. If you find yourself up against a rock with the current pushing you against it hard, you should lean into the rock, grasping it if necessary. This position does two things that increase you odds of getting off of the rock safely. The rock is stable and you can push your boat off of it with your hands. Also, this position puts the most surface area of the bottom of your kayak against the current. This means more pressure lifting your boat off of the rock. If you lean upstream, the current will grab the upstream edge of your boat and pull it under. You will soon follow.

Once you have taken the whitewater and swift water rescue courses, you will surely be ready to work on maneuvering to sneak, instead of just maneuvering to stay afloat. In order to sneak up on the fish, you should have a good idea of where the fish are. Once you start to recognize a pattern, look for similar areas and avoid "crashing" them. By crashing the area, I mean paddling or drifting through an area and realizing too late that you have spooked a fish out of it's preferred habitat. Look downstream of you, determine the best looking target area, paddle around it from a distance, then cast upstream to it.

Casting upstream, or from behind the fish is the best approach, but it isn't always the easiest to set yourself up for. The fish are looking upstream for food to drift down past them. If they can see you at the same time they see the lure, they may not hit. If they only see the lure, they have a greater chance of hitting it.

Scrutinizing the amount of noise you make while getting in position leads to less spooked fish. Take time to notice all of the things that could contribute to the fish hearing you. Paddle contact with rocks or the boat, ruddering with the paddle, bottoming out, and using the wrong stroke to stop your momentum can alert the fish to your location. A drag chain or anchor also makes a lot of noise.

Jessica Fritz wedged on a rock to catch this Susquehanna River smallmouth

A good alternative to anchor or drag chain use is wedging your kayak on shallow underwater rocks. This allows you to be stationary while fishing a good target area. You will be able to detect a finesse bite better and keep the lure in the target area longer. Some kayaks are better designed for wedging than others. A rounded whitewater kayak will wedge better than a more typical recreational kayak that has a keel line. Recreational kayaks don't all have sharp keel lines in the front. The more rounded a kayak is in front, the better it will wedge. Sharper keel lines will make a wedged boat more likely to tip, or be unsteady when wedged.

A method of stopping that creates less noise from turbulence of water flowing around a ruddering paddle, is to insert the paddle in the water at an acute angle, pointing toward the direction you are drifting. It is exactly the opposite angle you use when ruddering. In general, the fewer bubbles your paddle makes, the less noise it makes. This might be hard to visualize, but experiment with making less paddle noise.

Using your hands can also decrease the amount of noise you make in shallow or rocky areas. Any time your kayak comes into contact with a stationary object in the water, waves of vibration and sound alert the fish to your location. If you see that you are slowly drifting toward a rock, put you hands on the rock to slow or prevent the impact. This technique isn't meant for very swift water. In shallow water where kayaks can bottom out, hands can be used to push off of the rocky bottom. This makes less noise than thrashing the shallow water with your paddle to get unstuck.

Woodchuck decided to sneak up on this hole by wading it

Sometimes there's a hole you know of that you want to do whatever it takes not to disturb. Especially in clear water situations, it might be a good idea to get out of your boat and sneak up on the fish by walking the bank or wading. While floating new water, it is very easy to crash these areas. When you do, make a mental note of what it looked like from the approach and be sure to sneak up on it next time.

Recognizing where the most water is flowing can decrease the number of times you bottom out. Bottoming out makes noise and spooks fish. Being able to read water comes with experience. A good guideline is to aim for the center of the largest V shaped water pointing downstream. Boats with more volume may be more difficult to maneuver in current, but they sit higher and pass over shallower water.

Tim Holschlag's book goes into more depth on many of these sneaking techniques. He does an especially good job covering your approach to a target area. The first step is to realize that sneaking leads to catching!