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    June 8, 2023 at 2:08 am

    

    brackbeard

    

    

    

    

    Yearning to ‘Yak Again

    Back in the days of yore when I lived in Central Florida, I LOVED kayak fishing. Unfortunately, due to general life changes, I was forced to turn in my paddles shortly before relocating to Jacksonville about four years ago. Ever since, I have been dying to get another kayak, as this area generally just provides so many amazing (and beautiful) skinny water opportunities, especially for those looking to catch some serious fish.

    Despite my desire to paddle again, it’s been tough to make it happen. For one, I traded in my truck for an SUV. Even when I had an extended bed — loading the one more 12′ kayaks in, out, ratcheting them down, the persistent hazard while driving, etc. — all made transporting my yaks a major pain in the butt, though most definitely worth the trouble. Now, living in the Riverside neighborhood of Jacksonville, the problem was exacerbated. If you ever lived in Riverside, you’d know how rare it is to find a place that accommodates storage space offering much more than a cubby hole. Thanks to sharing my apartment with my girlfriend, I’m left with even less. So, I came up with a solution (or so I thought…).

    My Yak Fishing Dream Deflated

    No storage for a kayak? I guess I have no choice but to compromise to achieve my fishing fix with an INFLATABLE. It had decent reviews, cost a few hundred bucks, and of course, it ultimately wasn’t worth the hot air expended to inflate the damn thing. Foiled again. However, I will say, the “foldable” kayaks by Oru and TuckTech have piqued my interest.

    Fast forward to this past Friday, and my brother was up for the weekend visiting from Melbourne. Usually when he comes up to Jax, we’ll make a day of surf fishing at Amelia Island State Park, or sometimes Huguenot. This time, we were loading up the truck and I thought, hey, let’s do something different. Let’s see if we can get on some yaks out on the salt marsh. And we did.

    One quick Google search and the plan was set — we were going to Kayak Amelia, located right by Talbot State Park. The only problem was not planning it soon enough as it was already 2pm, an hour away, and they close at 5pm. We knew our actual fishing time would be limited, but just wanted to scout it out. We were told it would be about an hour paddle from the boat launch through the marsh to the beach, working against the wind and tide, but we only had two hours to get back. Despite seeing the fishiest of activity at every choke and ambush point, every barnacle bed, we paddled our hearts out straight to the beach without a single cast.

    Good Catching on Little Fishing

    We made it to the ocean, and it was beautiful. I immediately setup and cast on the fishiest looking ambush point between the bar and marsh. Second cast, fish on! A beautiful, good-sized flounder. I was wading 20 yards away, and he flopped off the line before I could get a photo, but long enough for all boats in the vicinity to catch a glimpse and get the cue to ascend on my spot, lol.

    My brother caught some type of little grunt or pigfish before we had to hustle back. It was a short trip, but I’m excited to go get back out to Amelia Island for some kayak fishing.

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