how windy is too windy for kayak fishing 10 miles an hour 15 miles an hour 20 miles an hour 25 miles
an hour i'm not actually going to tell you how windy is too windy i'm going to let you decide
for yourself and i'm going to give you a ton of information to inform that decision one of
the coolest things that i found out there is actually i'm going to show you how to identify
wind speed in real time you don't have to break out your phone you don't have to do any research
you have to go to wind finder but literally just by looking around you i'm gonna show you
how to do that and i propose this question how windy is too windy for kayak fishing because
this sport is blowing up there are kayak fishermen coming online every single day and if you don't
know what you're doing out there and if you have some inexperience because you are a beginner not
a problem at all this is an important question to answer because to be blunt it could cost you
your life buzz kill but seriously if you don't know what you're doing out in the water it could
cost you here here's some headlines check this out metro detroit kayakers who died on like superior
faced strong winds all right here's another headline this one's kind of heartbreaking um
in fact he said heartbreaking video shows stranded kayakers final moments and here's another one from
kayak angler it says the scary truth about the increase in paddle sports related deaths hundreds
of people die every single year and i don't want you to be one of them so i'm glad you're here
learning what you're about to learn can really get you out of a hairy situation or worse so
let's lighten things up a little bit uh after all that talk about death and dying seriously why are
you still talking about it so i threw a pole up on my community tab you're not part of that you gotta
you gotta be part of the community man so you gotta you gotta hit the sub and bell notification
so you can participate and see the results of those polls so go and do that i asked the same
question as i titled in this video how windy is too windy for kayak fishing and to be honest with
you i've never had so much engagement and so many people writing and giving their answers we had 169
votes it's still happening in real time so this can keep going up out of those 169 votes five
to 10 miles an hour they said 11 of you said i'm out that's too windy for me 46 you said 11 to 15
i'm done i'm off the water i'm not even thinking about heading out to the water all right moving
on 16 to 20. this is kind of crazy this is really windy out on a body of water 27 so that is your
point right there and then just for fun i put hell or high water i'm going fishing you're some
crazies out there 16 of you are just nuts well some of you that were cold may change your mind
because a little wind is fine but a lot of wind while it turns sketchy real fast i'm just guessing
that most of you do not have an anemometer in your back pocket to be honest with you i spent the last
minute trying to figure out how to pronounce anemometer so i ended up and so am and i'm
oh my gosh freaking wind speed gauge i actually had to go to youtube to figure it out anemometers
anemometers you don't have one of those in your back pockets and you can do one of two things
you can head over to your phone a lot of times those weather apps will tell you you can go to
windfinder.com or you can do something much cooler and something that's more in real time which is
deduce the wind speed from your surroundings i'm going to show you how to do that but the scale is
really really cool so essentially what you can do is by looking around and seeing how the wind is
affecting the things around you you can determine the wind speed it was actually created by a rear
admiral in the royal navy back in the 1800s back before they had the weather app back before they
had anemones anemometers oh my gosh i hate that word the scale actually runs from like 0 to 12
0 being completely calm 12 being like hurricane force winds but i'm not going to go through every
single one of them i'm just gonna focus on the ones between 10 miles an hour and like 30 miles
an hour being that's what i pulled my community on all right as i go through these please throw
in the comment sections below if i'm going through these scales and i'm and i start showing what it
does to a kayak fisherman out on the water i want you to write with your miles per hour when you're
out you're like i'm getting off the water or that is that's the line for me i'm not even
i'm not even thinking about getting on the water i see it in the weather in the future and this is
a zero day when it comes to fishing so have some fun throw those in the comments here we go start
with number one one to three miles an hour i mean you could start to barely see ripples on the water
smoke will slowly start to wane through the air most of us right here we're still fishing
this is like a perfect day the next one is four to seven miles an hour at four to seven miles an hour
you can start to feel the wind on your face and the leaves are starting to rustle around and if
there are any waves out on the water they're still glassy and you're not going to see any white caps
at four to seven now we're getting into the thick of it we're looking at eight to twelve miles an
hour by looking around you you're starting to see the leaves on the trees and the twigs they're in
constant motion any light flags they're going to start to extend and if you're out on the water you
might even start seeing some white caps all around you and according to the pole some of you you're
like that's it you're out so if you were you were there tell me what mile per hour you're like i'm
gone and now we're in 13 18 miles an hour this is when things start to get a little bit serious
your small waves just got bigger i mean if you're on land this is lifting paper up off the ground
dust is up off the ground there are frequent white caps at 13 to 18 miles an hour if you use a paddle
to power your yak you're gonna have a heck of a timeout in the water right now and you should
really start thinking about heading home because it's gonna be really difficult to force that kayak
against the wind so those with electric or pedal powered you could still be in the fishing game and
now i'm talking to you crazy fishermen out there this is the 19 to 24 miles an hour now you're
starting to get wet spray is starting to come over your bow you got water in your kayak things aren't
looking good small trees are starting to sway i mean it's getting pretty serious if you use a
paddle to power your kayak you're actually calling your buddy hey i need you to come back over here
and hook up my tow rope and take me back to the dock if you have a pedal power kayak it's
gonna be tough you're gonna be able to get back to the dock and all your electric
powered kayaks you're still good to go it's just getting wild on the water right now if you're
finding value please hit the like button help me out a little bit and now we're moving on to
25 to 31 miles an hour if you're still in the water you're crazy large trees are moving you
can start to hear the whistling sound over the telephone wires if you were to use an umbrella
it'd be very difficult and be blowing it inside out if you're on the water and aren't powered by
an electric motor you're going to be in trouble at 25 to 31 miles an hour scale actually goes up
to 75 miles per hour like i said but we're not going to go up that far because if you go past
this point it's getting pretty dangerous out there but i would love to hear if you haven't done it
yet throw in the comments what was your breaking point i would love to hear it and of course guys
i do research on these videos this is not a stream of consciousness before you i'm not pulling these
things out on my rear end i actually do a lot of study so i can bring content and value to you
and so i actually did some research on this and what does the majority of the people out here the
experts in the field say it's actually too windy to be out in the water in a kayak and this is
what they said the safe fishing limits for small bodies of water range between 15 and 20 miles per
hour but if you're in a large body of water you should really start calculating the risks around
10 to 15 miles an hour of course in my studies i came across all kinds of information but i'm going
to leave you with a bullet point list i think it's really important if you're going to head out there
if you're really serious about safety no fish is worth your life and so here's some things to
keep in mind number one just because you're a strong swimmer doesn't mean you're immune
to drowning guys back in 2015 i swam 50.6 miles and 36 non-stop hours across lake michigan
i still wear a personal flotation device in fact i have one of my favorites i did a video a little
review on it you can check that up in the cards some of you might be like what 50.6 nonstop miles
in 36 hours i'll probably have to break out that story a little later in some of my videos but
for now i'm going to keep on moving on number two be aware of the water temperature and you really
should know how to do a deep water re-entry back into your kayak in fact this is on my video cues
right now it's like 10 degrees in northeast ohio so i'm not going to be showing you how to do that
but once spring and summer rolls around i'm going to show you how to re-enter your kayak in deep
water guys you might have never fallen out of your kayak before i know i haven't but years ago i was
up in the boundary waters and i was out fishing by myself because i was doing some late night fishing
right as the sun was going down i was probably a half a mile from the camp i accidentally hit my
sunglasses and they fell off well my reaction was to grab them before i know it i flipped the entire
canoe with all my gear luckily i was in six feet of water i was able to grab all that stuff from
the bottom because you've never been the boundary waters oh man just excellent fishing you got the
pike there's water wolves you got small mouth bass if you're thinking about an awesome trip head up
there but what i'm saying is that it could have been really hairy if i was out in the middle of
the lake so do some research if you don't know how to do a deep water re-entry to your kayak
there's some nuances to it you're just not going to pop yourself back into the kayak so it might
even be good for you to practice number three if you river fish especially if you're river
fish with your kids watch out for those low head dams and what those are is basically
maybe just a five foot drop and at the bottom that water churns this shouldn't be a surprise
to you either 70 percent of all drowning victims have alcohol detected in their bloodstream guys
paddling and drinking simply do not mix and here's a good one and here's the reason i didn't want to
share with you what your numbers should be because you should know your limits and your ability
if you're new to this and you haven't even thought about any things we talked about today
well you might not want to start heading out in 15 to 20 mile per hour winds that could be a bad day
for you and so know your ability know your limits if you've been doing this for five years plus
and you've been through the white caps and you've practiced how to do deep water reentry well you
might be good you might be good in 15 to 20 and you might still like fishing and really enjoy
that so know your abilities and know your limits and also for those salt life guys you got to be
of course you're doing and maybe you might be doing it for the first time you start heading out
into salt water you gotta know your tides and you gotta know your rip currents you gotta know how
to get out of those so make sure you do your research on that if you are thinking about
uh fishing salt water for the first time those are just the things that are within your control
and what you really have to watch out before because you are a kayak there's a lot of other
watercraft out there or other watercraft that are intoxicated or may have overstepped their
abilities and their limits so you really got to be defensive being that you're the smaller vessel
also you don't move that fast so always be aware of your surroundings maybe a boat that's up on
plane it can't see you uh that's why it's good sometimes to throw up some flags and your kayak
might be a good idea um just to be continue to be safe there's a ton of things i wish i
knew before i got into the sport in fact if you like this video you will love this one 11 things
i wish someone would have told me before i started kayak fishing check it out right
there and don't forget to join this community by hitting that sub and bell and like button
and i will see you in the next video or out in the water thanks for watching guys