Milk Crate Location (back or front)?

[dougrowland]

The wife and I recently bought our sit-in kayaks. Got some paddle time in for a few weeks before we started fishing. Now we are trying to get our Kayaks setup for fishing. One thing has puzzled me.

When I see pictures of crates on Kayaks, they always seem to be behind the person. When I put my crate on my kayak (with bungees), I put it in front of me. My back isn't that great and I have shoulder issues also. So having to constantly try to turn around and reach behind me doesn't sound too fun.

Does anyone else put their crate in front? The one time I fished with the crate, I enjoyed having everything right in front of me.

Of course, I still have to figure out where to store my fish (once I catch some). Still just fishing and not catching yet....

Thanks,
Doug

[Ron Mc]

SOT kayaks generally have stops specifically for milk crates molded into the sternwells, and their cockpits usually don't have a place to fit a milk crate along with legs

there aren't any rules, and with your sit-inside, milk crate in front is probably the only way to keep your stuff handy.

the easiest way to deal with keeping legal bag fish is a stringer.
The older rope stringers will tie off anywhere - bowline knot is handy for this - here looped through a side carry handle.
http://www.theensign.org/uspscompass/co ... owline.htm
of course you generally tie off the stringer much shorter than this demo, with the long tag end inside the boat
you can also tie this knot by first looping through your milk crate.

rope stringers also instantly cleat in a Z-cleat - the new style plastic stringers won't cleat this way because they slide too easily in z-cleat

The new plastic stringers work best with a simple V-cleat - this one also has a cheap nylon fairlead - there's about $6 worth of parts here

another nice thing about milk crates, you can drill or clamp to mount fittings to them rather than drilling your kayak -
cleat, rod holder, etc.

[Neumie]

Nothing wrong with having the crate in front of you, especially if you're fishing from a sit inside kayak. If it works for y'all go with it.

[Ron Mc]

here's another idea.
I went looking for the johnny dashboard bar I have on my daughter's Redfish, and found this great closeout price.
https://www.backcountry.com/harmony-fis ... johnny-bar

you could mount this in front of your cockpit, then attach anything you need to the johnny bar - rod holder, cleat, tool keepers, paddle leash, paddle clip, compass, etc.
The legs move to any slot, and you can easily saw the bar to a narrower length to fit the width of your boat.
Mounting it would require drilling to mount 4 deck eyes to your boat.
Here's hers, 2" cut off the bar, and strapped through holes in the foot peg rack. Most of my fittings have wingnuts, so I can move them if I choose.

Note I have bungees running along front and back of the dashboard for quick grab of anything -
- the two bungees will keep handy a single plano box, binoculars, etc.

or that emergency weather shell


You can also move it to your next boat. This one began as a rear cockpit in the sternwell of my T160 when my daughter was 9 and we tandemed together. I bolted it to slidetrax, the legs provided her footpegs, attached a paddle leash, rod holders, and a compass for her. Two years later we moved it to the dashboard of her Redfish (the boat above).

at the coast we mostly use boats to get to good wadefishing (stake out the boat with a pole)
this day she was catching honkin' sheepshead, which want to get back to deep water

and a good meal of trout