Fat Kayak

Don't Fall off Your Sit-on-Top

My kayak gained weight since I last used it, or so it seemed when I loaded it in my SUV recently.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t used it?  I didn’t think about putting it up top, on the rack where I’ve carried it for years, but settled for second-best.  Let it hang out, tie it in, pink surveyor’s tape to flap a warning.  Short trip, an easy decision…at my age, 71.

I made another decision years ago:  don’t use a sit-on-top kayak.  My arse is below the waterline in my sit-in boat, making it more stable than a sit-on-top.  Inuits had to stay dry or die.  

Maybe age has something to do with falling off kayaks.  This winter I helped two men who fell off their sit-on-top in Tampa Bay and couldn’t get back aboard.  We got them in our skiff then towed their boat.  They were in their late sixties, both tired and cold, one near panic. 

Recently a pal in his sixties fell off his sit-on-top in a local lake, and unable to re-board, was towed ashore.  I didn’t ask about his cell phone or fly rod. 

Think it’s easy to get back aboard your kayak?  Try it in a swimming pool.  While you’re at it, swim a few lengths to test your stamina… in your fishing clothes.  Feel old?

One of my pals is overweight, in his seventies, and complains about his back, so when we go wading for bluegills I bring along a 6’ aluminum ladder so I can help him climb back aboard.  It’s his three-toed cane.  We’ll keep fishing.  Whatever it takes.

Another tough old Cracker fishing friend told me that he wears a life vest now when he fishes by himself.  Said he knows he couldn’t get back aboard. (Until now we laughed at “Yankees” wearing life jackets.)  I noticed that he carefully puts his cell phone in a zip-lock bag inside a larger zip-lock, in the pocket with his heart pills.    

It’s time to rethink climbing up on a skiff’s poling platform.  Agile young men, top fishing guides, fall off those things.  I did once forty years ago, into the water, luckily.  

I’ve read about tying fly leaders at home, some with flies attached.  Why does that suddenly seem smart? 

Before I leave home I will stop and go over the check list I’ve made, and just before backing the boat down the ramp I’ll re-check the tie-downs and the plug, and make sure it’s ready to slide off the trailer, bow line attached somehow.  Not that I’m more forgetful these days.

I think about these things, naturally, now.  Smaller boats, shorter trips.  Wade sand not mud.  Outbound paddle up-wind.  Someone knows where I’m fishing, when I’m expected home.   Moving tide, proven flies, familiar spots.  It’s simpler now and I’m catching more fish than ever before.