bid4fishing

My quick awnser to that is 'NOTHING' Having been fortunate enough to be published now for several years in various fishing publications, i to have looked into self publishing. There are many companies that will allow you to self publish with NO outlay or minimal outlay. Im not knocking your idea. At second glance, its an easy way of getting yourself published. Surprisingly, its quite difficult to fill a whole book of stories. Secondly, editing can be left to an editor. Its very difficult to write a captivating article/story, that is technically and grammatically correct. Good luck to your project.

Just a small update, this comp. is running together with a friendly meet up with kayakers from all over the UK, and interestingly enough a smattering of South Africans. Back in the old days, late 70s and 80s we used to fish from paddle skies in Africa, however after a couple of run ins with a couple of sharks i called it a day. Running into threshers and great whites while sitting on a float wasnt my idea of fun. Now in my mid 40s i decided to take up the sport again, since the most dangerous shark im bound to run into is a dogfish, i feel safe again. There are 14 kayak anglers coming up on Saturday so far. We will be fishing all morning, then taking a lunch break and then fishing into dark. Coincidently this company will be doing a demo day. This has nothing to do with us but still may be of interest. http://www.karitek.co.uk/DemoDays.html The thread for this weekend can be found at AA.

The Scottish Kayak Elasmobrach Challenge Cup 2009 All welcome. Please note your interest and comments/suggestions below. 8+ target species: 1 point per species. Person who catches most elasmobrach species over 6 events: WINS. Attempting to get some sponsorship prizes at this point. Lesser Spotted Dogfish Bullhuss Black Mouth Dogfish Spurdog Tope Starry/Common Smoothound Common Skate Thornback Ray other Rays Event 1 - 3 Jan 2009 ? Loch Ettive ( Spurdogs etc ) Event 2 - March/April ? Oben Area/Crinan ( BMD etc ) Event 3 - April/May ? Wigtown Bay ( Smoothound ) Event 4 - May/June ? Luce Bay ( Tope ) Event 5 - July/Aug ? Loch Aline / Sound of Mull ( Skate/BMD/Cuckoo Ray etc ) Event 6 - Mid November ? Loch Sunnart ( Skate/Spurdog/Thornback ) To coincide with tagging effort ( Dates still to be decided )

Not sure if you are still after some info on this yak. I have one now for a couple of months, mainly using it on Scottish sea lochs. Plus points - very stable, i can even stand and fish from it. It will take some knocks and still not sink. Bad points - its very slow compared to a scupper pro or dorado. Caught in a wind you can end up going backwards as you are sitting higher above the water. Fishing out at sea you need to really understand your weather and tide conditions as this kayak is unforgiving to a novice. I like this kayak as i use it as a photographic platform and offers me what i need. But remember , stability is not everything.

We had a bit of excitement on Saturday at the Spurdog Tagathon on Loch Sunart. Heading out on our Kayaks towards Laga Bay we hooked up to a buoy. In strong winds and lashing rain I had great difficulty in following Paul on his Dorado. At one point i was going backwards for 10 minutes while paddling my socks off. I had to pull into a small Island and wait till the gusts of wind died down before i headed out and tied up to pauls kayak. The wind and rain was relentless and felt like i was out at open sea. Anyway after a long day catching spurs, thornbacks and a couple of dozen of doggies we were getting ready to pack up as the light was almost gone. As i reached for my rod it buckled over and did a full 180 around the kayak. I only had time to hold on for a minute as it made mince meat of my spurdog rig. Paul reacted quickly and got another big bait in the water. Within 3 minutes it was on and a tug of war ensued for about 15 minutes. At this time it was dark and it was bucketing down with rain. I was bobbing up and down and by this time and drifting free from paul. I only had one pass to get the photograph as Paul released the skate from his kayak and it was very blurred. Unfortunately due to the extreme weather Shauns photos of the skate did not come out either. Next time im taking a proper skate rig with me. If Paul is active on this forum he will add his story.