Kayak Fishing: Make Sure Your Safety Gear Includes the All-Important Paddle Leash

Bluefish are rowdy fish with sharp teeth. They need to be bled within a few minutes after capture. Otherwise their fine-tasting fillets spoil in a matter of a couple of hours.

Rigging a sea kayak for fishing doesn't take all that much effort or expense.

Your fishing gear can be as simple as a handline stored in the dayhatch or jammed beneath the foredeck rigging, and which you deploy for trolling when you're near rocks and reefs or tidal rips.

In waters such as Baja's, northern California's and the U.S. coastline between the mid Atlantic states and southern Maine, dirt-simple trolling with a handline will usually bring up a yellowfin tuna, dorado, striped bass or bluefish.

Likewise, trolling with a handline can feed a fisherman paddling the Gulf of Mexico or the eastern coast of Florida. Likewise anywhere in the world where fish feed within ten to fifteen feet (three to five meters) of the surface.

Your gear can be as complex as multiple rods and reels, including spinning gear and dedicated trolling boat roads.

Regardless of your gear choice,at a minimum you'll need a paddle leash.

Paddle leashes are a controversial item among sea kayakers, but in the interests of practicality, let's leave that dog unkicked.

The photo shows an 17-foot wooden Patuxent sea kayak equipped with a simple paddle leash made from light bungie cord, a side release clip and nylon webbing. Note how the leash is attached to the foredeck rigging with a ladder-lock.

You'll need pieces to fashion a paddle leash. The whole rig makes fishing from a kayak safer. You don't risk losing your paddle while landing a fish. Stowing your paddle beneath tghe foredeck rigging every time you hook a fish is cumbersome.

If your paddle is attached to a leash, you just drop the paddle into the water when you hook up, land your fish, bleed it, then retrieve your paddle.

Needless to say there's endless debate in sea kayaking boy scout circles over paddle leashes. Many paddlers regard paddle leashes as a safety hazard: the inherent risk of post-capsize entanglement. Other kayakers content that leashes break the hard rule that a sea kayakes never let go of their paddle, no matter what happens.

Regardless, from a kayak fishing perspective, a paddle leash helps you land fish quickly, with minimal inconvenience, and without your having to worry about your paddle floating off in the wind or current should you drop it.

About the writer: kayakfishing guide Adam Bolonsky writes about kayak fishing and ocean kayaking (sea kayaking) at Sea Kayaking Dot Net and NorthAmerican Kayak Fishing.