As kayak anglers we have a lot of advantages over our brethren in power boats. Being able to get to fish where boats can’t or getting closer to them with greater stealth. Even in our stealthy kayaks we can scatter all the fish though with just one bad cast or be seen by the fish before we ever get a cast off. Covering more water with your cast and keeping far enough away from your targeted species is a must when flats fishing or any open shallow body of water. With just a few simple proper gear selections you can obtain these skills.
The average angler working an area of a flat makes 60-70 cast an hour and can almost make nearly 400 to 500 cast on a good day on the water. If you added just 20 feet to each of those cast you can almost cover 2 more miles of water a trip. That’s 2 more miles of of your lure being in the water and increasing your chance of catching fish!
Improving your distance starts with the rod you are using followed by the line and arbor size of your reel. A fast action light tip rod is going to load faster and help cast your lure greater distances. For spinning outfits a 7’6′ rod and 7′ for casting reels will be a good match. Changing your line from mono to a braided line will also cause less resistance through the air. An obvious change is to put your back to the wind also. Let mother nature help get you there. Finally a larger arbor reel in the 2500-3000 series will give you almost a 25% increase of line coming of the reel per revolution of the spool. Try this simple tricks to help you keep your distance from spooky fish but helping you get on ’em. Remember when you see that trout swimming around he saw you first most times.