With world renowned paddling instructor Tom McEwan looking on through the lens of his video camera, I sprinted toward the eddy. The phrase “speed, angle, lean” ran through my head. Crossing the eddy line at too shallow an angle, my kayak wavered and stalled. When my momentum eventually carried me into the soft dead water, I failed to lean into the turn. This forced me to slap my paddle on the surface to keep me from toppling over.
The awkward brace caught the attention of several other students floating in the large Potomac River eddy. We were all trying to obtain Kayak Instructor Certification. My flubbing the maneuver clearly presented me as the long shot. Too embarrassed to lift my head from my spray skirt, I thought, “No kayak fisherman would ever crash the top of the eddy. That’s where all of the actively feeding fish are.”
My excuses provided only temporary solace. At the end of the day, we watched the videos of each student performing the preset series of maneuvers. My lips did not part, even though we were all asked to provide critique on each others technique. I knew that my lackluster performance was coming up soon.
When I saw my orange kayak appear on the screen, my throat knotted up. Seeing yourself on video helps you diagnose defects in your paddling technique like nothing else. Before I even performed the first maneuver, Tom paused and rewound my approach to where I would eddy turn.
“Does he rotate his torso as he paddles?” he asked the group. A female student piped up from the back of the room “NO!” I wanted to sublime. “Look at it again” Tom said as he rewound. Another student pointed out as I lifted my eyes from the floor, “Yea he does!” I picked up the first few shards of my pride.
Next was the eddy turn. “Nice speed going into it” someone says. “Need a steeper angle. You can time your lean better when you cross the eddy line at a steeper angle” says a different student.
Then I performed the ferry. This made my pride whole again. I glided across several chutes without losing ground. My paddle blades spent very little time in the water. As I approached stronger current, I turned the nose of the kayak into the current with a lean and a gentle sweep stroke. “This applies to fishing” I thought as I watched.
I ended up earning certification to teach Basic River Kayak. Since then I have taught many kayak anglers how to ferry, how to use torso rotation to get more power, and how to crisply cross an eddy. As soon as I teach the eddy turn, I tell my students “It’s good to know how to do this, but now that you know, I don’t ever want to see you crash the top of the eddy – That’s where the aggressive smallmouth are positioned!”
Jeff Little teaches kayak fishing skills through his DVD series available at Confidence Baits LLC.