By Devin Holbrook
When it comes to kayak fishing, you almost have to change your style of fishing to adapt to being in a small boat. Whether you are fishing in a bass boat or fishing from the bank, you can’t necessarily fish the same way you would if you were standing on dry land or on the deck of a boat. One bass fishing strategy that may get tricky while fishing off of a kayak is flipping and punching. I entered the kayak fishing world with punching being my all time favorite technique for catching big bass but I quickly came to realize that there was much to learn on how to perfect the craft. When you are flipping heavy cover and set the hook, the most important thing is to keep as much tension on the fish as possible. Being in a kayak, that can be difficult because as soon as you set the hook you begin to pull the kayak to wherever that fish may be.
To help prevent that I use a Micro Power Pole to anchor me into the ground as I pick apart a certain area. I’ll typically flip 10-15 times into a certain area before moving on to the next. When I’m punching heavy cover I’ll use a 7 foot 6 inch heavy rod, although I’m considering going to a 7’9 extra heavy, with a high speed 8.1:1 gear ratio reel. A longer rod helps get better leverage on a hook set as well as making more accurate flips and pitches and you want a high speed reel to quickly get your bait up out of the thick stuff to make another flip. I use 65 lb braid, which some may think is overkill but I have had experiences in the past where I have broken off on fish while punching heavy cover with 50 lb braid.
When it comes to weight size, I’ll use anywhere from a 3/4 ounce weight all the way up to a 2 ounce weight depending on the cover that I’m fishing. Ideally you want to get away with using the lightest possible weight that will punch through whatever cover you are fishing. There are two types of vegetation that I look for in specific when I am looking to punch, those being floating mats or hydrilla mats. Floating mats either consist of water lettuce or hyacinths that just sit on the top of the water and create a cover almost like a roof of a house that gives bass shade and comfort. A lot of the time these floating mats will get blown up into reeds and cattails which creates an even better environment for bass.
I try to target where the mat meets a different kind of structure, they seem to like the combination. On the other hand, hydrilla mats are a plant that grows here in Florida that some may say completely takes over our waterways. But with that being said, hydrilla creates essentially the perfect cover for bait fish and bass to hide. In the summer hydrilla can grow up to an inch a day and when it runs out of room in the water column it begins to fold over at the top creating that perfect mat when it comes to punching. Just this past weekend, December 6th, 2025, I had fished the Native No Limit Big Bass Power Hour tournament out on the Kissimmee chain with one goal in mind: catch a giant bass. This tournament trail paid out $500 to the biggest bass of each hour and a brand new Native Titan X 12.5 kayak to the biggest bass of the day. I went out to a lake that I hadn’t prefished but have had good luck in the past.
The lake is completely choked out with hydrilla to the point where I was cleaning my NK 180 pro motor off every 20-30 feet. Originally on my punching set up I had a 1 ounce tungsten with a 3/0 flipping hook but it just wouldn’t get through the hydrilla. Around 10:45 I decided to go to an ounce and a half weight which started to get through. Quickly after that change, I caught one little guy and decided to just stick to the mats. I went from hydrilla clump to hydrilla clump for the rest of the day, power-poling down and picking apart each area of the mat before moving to the next. By 11:45 after countless flips I finally made the right one. I noticed a section of the hydrilla mat that stuck out like a peninsula and dropped my punch rig right in there. Felt the thump, set the hook and brought in roughly 30lbs of hydrilla, but just under all that hydrilla was an 8.4 lb 23.50 inch largemouth bass that ended up winning not only the hourly big bass for hour 5 but also the biggest bass of the day taking home a brand new kayak!
I just went yesterday to Travel Country Altamonte Springs to pick up the Native Titan X and let me tell you, this thing is a beast. So many opportunities to rig this kayak in so many different ways with a ton of cool features. Currently, I fish out of a Bonafide PWR 129 which is a serious yak in itself so I’m excited to put them both to the test to see which I decide to make my tournament rig to travel the country with for the upcoming Bassmaster Kayak Series!
