As YakOff II competitors Jeff Burlingame and Walton Doyal face off in week five of the YakOffs, competing to decide who has the most creative kayak fishing rig, we caught up with Burlingame to chat gear, his home waters, and unpopular kayak fishing opinions.
Burlingame and fellow YakOffs competitor Paul Glass make up the Aggressively Average Anglers team, running a popular YouTube channel committed to telling kayak fishing stories.
Q: Where do you call your home waters, and what do you find special about them?
Burlingame: Home for me is the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Paul of Aggressively Average Anglers and I usually fish lakes, ponds and rivers between Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. The thing that makes this place special is the sheer variety of waters. We have the Great Lakes, big lakes like Muskegon or Manistee, legendary smallmouth rivers like The Grand River, and small lakes and ponds that few people fish or live on. We also have a huge variety of species like largemouth, smallmouth, musky, northern pike, bluegill, perch, catfish, crappie, etc. that you can catch in just about any of our waters. It’s fun to just pick a new stretch of river or body of water and go explore!
Q: Do you have a most memorable catch?
Burlingame: There are a lot! We don’t get to travel a ton, so I’ll go with a recent catch on a trip to Sea Otter Lodge on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We kayak fished on the Ocean for the first time and had no idea what we were doing. The first full day, Paul and I ran a few miles out to a rocky point off of an island with the main group of guys on the trip. Within 10 minutes of rolling up to the spot, I dropped a lure I’ve never fished before (The Hook Up Baits) on a light line and freshwater gear (for fun) and hooked into a rockfish. That rockfish was then attacked mid fight by a giant Lingcod (scary, toothy critter), and I was able to reel it in and land it without the Lingcod even being hooked! It was my first big fish of the trip and a pretty rare catch called a hitch hiker! Needless to say, I was stoked! The rest of the trip was amazing!
Q: Is there one piece of gear you think is make or break?
Burlingame: Simple answer, PFD (Personal Floatation Device / Lifejacket)! PFD’s should be the first “accessory” any kayak angler buys, next to a paddle. You never know what could happen on the water, and you’re better safe than sorry. All the other accessories on your kayak are just luxury items, you don’t need them most of the time. You ALWAYS need a PFD.
Q: What piece of gear do you think is overrated?
Burlingame: Even though I like having it and use it a lot when on new lakes, forward-facing sonar (FFS) is pretty overrated for the average angler. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing technology, but if you just want to hit the water and have fun, it’s completely unnecessary. Now if you are trying to win tournaments and make money, that is a different story, but that’s the minority of anglers. I’ve had FFS for years, and I use it maybe 25% of the time these days. Standard down scan/side scan, when you learn how to read it, unlocks enough information for most anglers to put the puzzle together and catch fish.
Q: Whatโs your unpopular kayak fishing opinion?
Burlingame: Kayak fishing is meant to be a fun way to get in touch with nature and explore. I don’t care HOW you do that. You can fish out of a $200 kayak with one rod, one lure and a PFD, or a $20,000 tournament rig with a trailer. As long as you are staying safe, having fun and catching fish legally, I am happy for you. There is way too much negativity in the industry right now. “Just buy a boat”, “that’s not a kayak anymore”, and other nonsense gets thrown around in Facebook groups and YouTube comments. Let’s not lose sight of the whole point of all of this. Let people fish how they want to fish, as long as it isn’t harming our natural resources or others around them. Let’s get back to having FUN!
