Both fly rods and spinning rigs are suitable for fishing out of a kayak. I used a Shimano Spirex SR-2500RE spinning reel with 8-pound Stren monofilament on a 7-foot Cabela’s Classic rod in medium action. The rig might have been a bit light if I had connected with a large redfish, but it worked fine on the ones I caught.
As for bait, it doesn’t have to be complicated. When I was digging through my tackle box trying to decide what to take, Andrew Chidlow handed me a pack of ¼-ounce plain jigheads and three 3-inch Edge Hybrid Flurry baits in purple/chartreuse.
“That’s all you’ll need,” he assured me. “Just thread the Hybrid on the jighead, throw it out and work it back along the bottom just like you would a worm when bass fishing.”
The Hybrid was the only bait I used the entire trip, but there are other choices.
“Of course it’s hard to beat live shrimp, but we don’t normally carry them because you have to keep them alive and carry a bait bucket,” Coghlan. “We almost always use plastics. The Hybrid on a ¼-ounce jig is our favorite, but sparkle beetles in clear with chartreuse tail and, really, any plastics that have chartreuse on it, will work. A 1/8-ounce gold spoon can also be real good when retrieved fast over the oyster beds.
“And then there’s topwater baits like the She Dog or Top Dog. I like the one with bone color on top and chartreuse on the bottom. It can be very good for both reds and specs.”
