I have a legal stick that I use... or I paddle in skinny water. I'm just wondering what happened to hoosierplugger's idea of cutting the flippers down.
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| Shortening Mirage Drive Flippers http://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4110 |
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| Author: | hoosierplugger [ Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:16 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Shortening Mirage Drive Flippers |
I often fish very shallow saltwater flats with very soft bottoms. Has anyone tried shortening the masts and flippers on their mirage drive to be able to pedal in skinny water. I am not looking for a lot of speed in skinny water and short pedal strokes don't work well -- tend to spook fish. Just curious if anyone has tried this. Thanks. Craig |
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| Author: | mmiller [ Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:20 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Shorter? |
Shorter fins? If you want full strokes in shallow water, I guess it makes sense, but we recommend shorter strokes instead. Keep one foot forward and "flutter" the fins on a horizontal plane. The forward foot never passes half stroke. Maybe even less. you can really move along well using the flutter stroke. We pedal right up onto beaches this way. |
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| Author: | hoosierplugger [ Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:28 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
Thanks Matt. Like I said, the short strokes tend create more noise and spook fish. I've got some extra one's so I'll just cut them down and see how it works. Craig League City, TX |
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| Author: | SheYakFishr [ Sun Aug 13, 2006 4:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Shorter Fins? |
Hoosierplugger.. Please let me know how the 'shorter' fins work. There are shallow salt water flats all over the place close to where I live and I haven't braved near them yet in fear of messing up the mechanism. I've often wondered how much noise peddling produces and how bad it spooks the fish. Thanks.. Pam |
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| Author: | Bluffer [ Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:20 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
Lots of shallow flats around here also, when I get that shallow I just switch over to the paddle. Speed is not a issue then & can move quite enough with paddles going slow. |
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| Author: | Roadrunner [ Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:49 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
For skinny water, how about a pole? check out Apalach's pole at this thread: http://kfs.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/ ... 4311060962 Your Mirage drive develops most of its power near the tip area, so by clipping those fins, you might as well just leave the drive at home and paddle! You also risk having the two rubber components separate, leaving you with no fins. If you've already tried it by now, what happened? |
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| Author: | Apalach [ Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:54 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
Hey plugger, A lot of high level ingenuity and engineering has gone into the development of the original Mirage Drive, as well as the Turbos. I would be very hesitant about making any permanent modifications to a drive simply for skinny water. I mean, you can't simply glue the pieces back together when you need to use the regular drive. And, I think carrying two drives, or two sets of flippers and masts around with you will get old very quickly unless you have a lot more time, patience, storage, or hatch accessibility than a lot of us have. As Matt Miller points out, the partial extension or flutter kick works very well in skinny water. Any shallower than that, then I go to my paddle, or especially to my Law or poling stick. As Roadrunner mentioned, having a short (5 foot) poling stick has been of more utility than I ever imagined when I first designed mine. I rarely even use my paddle anymore since the poling stick makes a surprisingly good J-stroke paddle (with the terminal 4-way fitting), in addition to keeping me out of trouble around docks, floats, piers, anchored boats, oyster reefs, rocks, etc., where I use it to push off. In addition, it is perfect for launching and returning around here (no surf!), both as a J-stroke paddle, and as a poling stick. It is a lot quicker to get it out of my portside bungee and into use than my paddle, because of its much shorter length. It also avoids developing that "ragged edge" effect on a paddle blade that has been used for pushing off various hard (and often rough-surfaced) objects, especially like oyster reefs around here. The tips of my Mirage drive flippers will issue a hearty "amen" to that after I unexpectedly get carried in seconds right up onto a submerged (and unseen) oyster reef from deeper water by a strong-running tidal current! No time to even think about shifting to a drive with shorter flippers, besides which there is no way to swap out drives once you are aground anyway! BTW, that is a formula for a dump when your Mirage Drive flippers get stuck on a rock or oyster reef or even in soft mud and there is a strong current running. Being able to get my poling stick out, around my rods and rodholders, and into action in just a few seconds has kept me out of serious trouble on more than one occasion. In addition, a lot of folks down here don't even fool with an anchor on the flats, but use a stake-out pole stuck in the bottom sediment to secure their yak when they get out to wade-fish, or “anchor†|
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| Author: | SheYakFishr [ Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:18 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
I have a legal stick that I use... or I paddle in skinny water. I'm just wondering what happened to hoosierplugger's idea of cutting the flippers down.
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