Rod N Paddle Kayak Fishing

07/11/2025

You cant say this wasn't a win for everyone fishing the ACT. Now before you feel you want to throw your two cents in, what we here is an alignment to what is allowed in NSW, which is practical and sensible. So thankyou to everyone who jumped on the bandwagon after I highlighted the discrepancies in my video on the subject.

Good news, anglers! 🎣

📃 The Fishing Gear Declaration 2025 simplifies fishing rules to make them easier to understand. It also brings our rules in line with NSW for similar waters.

The new regulations take effect from today and mean
🐟 in Open Waters you can now have 4 rods in your possession (with no more than 2 in use)
🐟 in Trout Waters you can have 2 rods in your possession (with no more than 1 in use).

You’ll also find more clarity about the types of nets that you can use to take yabbies 🦞 as well as new gear definitions that better align with modern equipment and techniques.

➡️ Check out the new declaration and rules at https://www.act.gov.au/environment/animals-and-plants/animals/wildlife-management/fish/recreational-fishing-in-the-act

06/11/2025

I have used this system, and it is easiest loader to use that I have ever come across

05/11/2025

25/10/2025

Having just got back from a month away overseas, I still have not released my kayaks and gear from their slumber - still neatly packed away in the back of the garage.
Earlier last week, with a day off work, I decided to grab the paddle board, a rod and some soft plastics and go hit up the flats on one of the local rivers, Flathead for dinner sounded great, and it would scratch the itch that was getting stronger.
The morning was busy, and there was predicted high winds from midday, but when they didn't materialise, I thought I would take that opportunity - that it seems, was the first of a few mistakes.
I got to river, rigged and launched within minutes, and was on the water casting away for maybe 15 minutes, when I heard a noise, like a truck rushing my way, glancing around and I could actually see some pretty serious wind coming along the river from the west, with the trees on both banks moving and swaying violently as it was passing. I stowed my Rod (as per the video) and had picked up the paddle by the time the wind hit.
I was sideways into the wind, and it lifted and then screwed the board over, with me on it - straight into the drink, even though I had tried to brace with the paddle, clearly to little effect.
The water was only about a metre deep and I did have a pfd on, but when I stowed the rod in the holder, I had simply reeled the line in, leaving the soft plastic and jig head exposed at the rod tip. As I stood up, I was facing into the wind against the upside down board, with the water upto my chest.
With the rod sticking straight down, I could see it bending progressively more and more as I was being pushed along by the force of wind and wave.
Now, as it happens it was a Shimano Zodias, with a Stradic 2500 attached
, so I was somewhat reluctant to see it getting binned, however when I tried righting the board, the bend on the rod just kept getting worse, and worse - quick thinking made me realise the exposed hook at the rod tip was caught on something, as It turned out, the hook was caught in the centre of the Y on my thong - and easily fixed by removing my thong from my foot, but it could have been real nasty, for both foot and rod.
I have the board set up exactly as you see it in the video, and primarily use it for short stints on shallow water, - but I need to rethink how I stow the rod in future, and to follow my own advice (that I give to others) to capture the hook on the rods when not in use - they have a bad habit of embedding themselves when you least want them to.
Any ideas on changes I could make to the board setup would be well recieved. Bill Dunn

Making my S.U.P a Fishing Machine - with Rod N PaddleHey, I'm Bill from Rod N Paddle. I am part of the Australian Kayak fishing fraternity, based in Southern...

24/10/2025

A good read

How To Catch Conger Eels And Live To Tell About It | Catching a conger eel large enough to qualify for membership in the British Conger Club (BCC) is a challenge, and Mike Burnett, Greg Bowes and Mark Kemble were determined to accomplish the goal from their kayaks.

To qualify for the BCC, it is necessary to catch a conger eel over 30 pounds from open ground or 40 pounds from a wreck. The average size of a conger is between 10 and 40 pounds, but the current IGFA All-Tackle record is 133 pounds, four ounces with the largest conger ever recorded a 350-pound monster.

Bristol Channel off the coast of South Wales has a healthy population of sizeable eels; however, most of the largest eels are too far offshore for even the most experienced kayak anglers.

So, Burnett, Bowes and Kemble chartered Captain Rob Rennie on the Lady Jue for a ride to the fishing grounds.

The Bristol Channel seabed between the Welsh coast and Exmore consists of mud, sand and gravel, punctuated by larger sand banks and shallow, rocky reefs. The rusting hulk of the wreck is perfect habitat for the plethora of small fish, crustaceans and other food for foraging eels.

The first challenge was anchoring in 100 feet of water, especially since the Bristol Channel experiences the second-highest tidal range anywhere in the world. Anchoring requires almost 300 feet of line and 10 feet of chain connected to a Bruce or plow anchor.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/48yAbPD

✍️/📷: David Lewis

11/10/2025

IS THIS YOU.... 🤔🎣

02/10/2025

If you do nothing else this season, try to remember to wear one of these things, and look on it as a fashion accessory, that just may help save your life. If, like me, you wear a vest, then give it a thorough check over (and clean 😁), and if you wear an inflatable - also check out, and maybe replace the gas cylinder, Bill.

19/09/2025

Hobie Kayaks have been purchased 🤔
Well, that's the rumor that is circulating at the moment, and it suggests that the new owner is Bass Pro, and American retail giant, think Bunnings, but for the fishing and hunting brigade, and from what I am reading, a lot of your Hobie tragic are not at all happy.
BassPro is a very successful retail chain giant with over 180 outlets, which include the Cabelas chain of stores they purchased in 2016, as well as golf courses, resorts and the like. It has a huge reputation as a very profitable business, which started 50 odd years ago in the back of a liquor store in Missouri, and constantly features high in employer ratings.
Hobie was purchased in 2021 by a private equity firm, who have stripped it down to improve its profitability for sale. This has made many believe that the post 2021 Kayaks are not as well made as earlier ones, and many ha e complained about quality, breakages and service (from the parent company,not Hobie Aus or its dealers).
If the rumors are true, I suggest it is too early to say what sort of direction the BassPro group may take Hobie, but I would suggest that it may be a good thing, given that they are a very solid, stable operation, that tend to look to further growth, not reductions, strip backs and the like.
Lets wait and see what happens.
Edit - No longer a rumor- it has been made official.
Bill.

01/09/2025

With the weather not being conducive to my fishing brain lately, I thought I would do a bit of a tidy in the garage on Saturday, I had decided last time I was on one of the estuaries around here that I needed to do a lure restock for the crate.
Now I have decided I may have a problem, whats your thoughts 🤔.

26/08/2025

Check this out - amazing what nature can do...

In the shadows of coral caves, a hunter waits with a secret.
Its body coils like a serpent, teeth gleam at the surface — but the real weapon hides deeper, inside the throat.

The moray eel.
At first glance, it looks like any other predator of the reef. Long, muscular, mottled with earth tones, sliding in and out of coral crevices. Its jaw snaps with power, clamping onto passing fish. But what happens next belongs to science fiction.

From within its mouth, a second set of jaws shoots forward. The pharyngeal jaws — an inner pair of teeth-bearing jaws hidden in the throat — lunge outward to seize prey and drag it down into the digestive dark. Unlike most fish, whose throats merely pull food backward, the moray’s hidden blade actively bites.

It is nature’s answer to a nightmare. The eel strikes once with its outer mouth, then again from within, a double assault that leaves little chance of escape. A weapon within a weapon.

Morays are not small. Some stretch three meters long, with skulls large enough to swallow entire reef fish in a gulp. Their faces, twisted into what looks like an eternal snarl, are actually just gills pumping water — but to divers who glimpse them at night, the effect is monstrous.

Yet behind the terror lies elegance. The pharyngeal jaw evolved as an innovation to handle slippery prey. Morays live wedged in reef holes, unable to create the suction that other fish use to swallow. Evolution gave them a second mouth, one that could reach out and finish the kill. In design, it mirrors the alien monsters of human cinema — but here it is real.

Coral reefs echo with life, and the moray eel plays its role as both predator and guardian of balance. By hunting fish, it shapes populations, pruning the reef with every strike. Hidden in its throat is the reminder that nature always builds deeper, stranger tools than we imagine.

A creature with two jaws. A throat that lunges.
An eel that hides a knife.

Learn more:

National Geographic: Moray Eel Feeding Behavior

BBC Earth: The Secret Second Jaws of Moray Eels

NOAA: Coral Reef Predators and Their Roles

25/08/2025

If you want a sneak peak at my latest video, that does not come out until this time tomorrow, you will need a Youtube account, here is a link you can use to view it.
What's it about - well a about 18 months ago I decided I needed to replace the Ranger, and I looked at many different options - I wasn't sure what I wanted, I just knew I didn't want another of what I had, and I needed to try something different.
This is what I did https://youtu.be/36h6J63EvuE

25/08/2025

Well now, it looks like we will have the rain gear out over spring and early summer - hopefully without the winds- my pet hate, fishing and wind.