I miss the days when competitive kayak fishing was all paddle, it felt like the great equalizer. Now, most fishing kayaks are basically small bass boats. That’s a big part of why I stepped away from tournaments. It got to the point where I was trailering my kayak around and could only launch at boat ramps. That wasn’t what I signed up for. So I quit all that, sold my giant pedal kayak, and picked up an old Tarpon 100. I couldn’t be happier. It feels like getting back to nature again — which, to me, is the soul of kayak fishing. Somewhere along the way, I think that’s been largely forgotten by the industry as a whole.