Well the Chokoloskee Boondoggle is history, and documented in the fishing logs and videos. I’m sure that we will be seeing other reports from the Boondoggle in the form of product reviews. This is one on the kayak dolly that I purchased for this event.

On Friday, February 17, kayak anglers from around the country will descend on a little island in the Everglades. Now in its second year, the popular three-day weekend kayak fishing event is a joint venture of KayakFishingRadio.com and YakAngler.com. The get-together offers kayak anglers the opportunity to meet up and fish, and to share tips and techniques with like-minded individuals.

With the hustle of the holidays coming to an end and 2012 right round the corner, I took a step back to reflect on what a great year 2011 was for the YakAngler Nation. With many kayak fishing websites being five to ten or more years old, YakAngler is definitely the new kid on the block. October 19, 2011 marked our two-year anniversary. In that short time we have seen our community of active users double, and in 2011 we reached over 160,000 unique visitors.

As the year comes to a close, I decided to sit back and take a look at the year that was 2011.  The year really started in the last few months of 2010 for me when I really started to get involved in on-line fishing forums, especially YakAngler.com.   This led me to launch YakFish.net with the help of YakSushi Media in January. 

This past Columbus Day weekend the Kayak Fishing Radio and YakAngler Crew invaded Charleston, South Carolina. We all arrived Friday afternoon at the KOA in Mount Pleasant and after some unpacking and setting up we headed over to the Charleston Angler for the captains meeting for the Redfishville Shootout which benefits Heroes on the Water. There was a nice turn out and it was nice to meet some of the locals. The guys at Kayak Fish SC gave us some tips on the Copahee Sound which would be our fishing grounds for the next day.

I know it seems crazy to sojourn across the state of Florida, lose out on sleep, sustain yourself on trail mix and those little peanut butter crackers just to get together with good friends and chase fish around in little plastic boats.

But, whoever thinks it’s crazy to do such things, hasn’t had the opportunity to fish Mosquito Lagoon with two of the best kayak fishing guides on the east coast of Florida.

It all started months ago when it was suggested on the YakAngler.com forum that we should all get together for a fishing trip down to Florida.  Once the date was set it turned out that my kids had the following week off from school, and I had a family road trip on my hands.  Those of you that have traveled with kids know the hassles they can cause, and this was not going to be a few hour trip to Grandma’s house but a 20+ hour 1200 mile pilgrimage to Jacksonville Florida.

If you missed the first half of our Presidents Day Boondoggle you can check it out here.

Sunday the 20th

Rob “ABadBackcast”, Mark “Landingcrew”, Chip “Treehugger”, and Brad “The Clone” all were up an on the road by 3:30am.  They were headed south to meet up with Chuck “Redfish Chuck” and Dee “ReelKayakFishing” for a day of Mosquito Lagoon.

Presidents Day Weekend saw members of YakAngler.com, KayakFishingRadio.com, IrishWaterDogs.com and Jaxkayakfishing.com from all over the country descend upon a small Florida State park in Jacksonville Florida.  Here is the recap of our weekend down in Little Talbot Island State Park.

They say 3:00 AM comes early but, they must have never fished at Mosquito Lagoon….

Chip woke me at 3:00 AM. We had loaded up all of our kayaks and gear the night before. I was sleeping in the clothes I was going to wear anyway, so all I had to do was roll out of bed, make a run to the bathroom, and brush my teeth.