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Fishing with the Kaenon Y35 (Yellow) Lens

Published: 11 April 2012
Written by Alex Tech
2 Comments
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Big Hammer, Kaenon Polarized, Marine/Boating, Sight Fishing

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD0M0X9jiCY&feature=youtu.be]

Kaenon is based in Newport Beach, CA and has a ‘waterman’ DNA, where they strive for excellence in eyewear that meet the demands of the surfing, sailing, boating, paddle boarding, swimming, and fishing lifestyle.  They make a family of stylish and functional frames, that can be fitted with excellent grey, copper or yellow polarized lenses.   The lenses are a high end SR-91 composite material, which is their own high tech composite material–not glass, which means they are light weight and durable, yet they are quality, extremely high quality  lenses, so they are awesome to look thru.   They are light weight and sporty, and are a great compromise of function and fashion.  They are fun to wear, especially on calm days, warming trend, somewhere between the North Shore and Indian Prairie!  There is no reason to not experiment and try new things with your sunglasses and lenses and see what works and what fits you best and see if you don’t find something you like or something that works better.   Kaenon’s are available in 3 vibrant and distinct color variations, that are polarized of course:  Yellow, Copper, and Grey. I show you how I use the yellow (Y35) lens in the above video.      I’m going to introduce you to my world viewed thru various Kaenon sunglasses with the various lenses in separate projects, starting with the yellow lens.  The Y35 Kaenon Hard Kores are my choice for fishing in the black water of Okeechobee.

To understand why the Yellow lens helps ‘add light’ and brighten up the dark water of Florida, and brighten up cloudy and grey days for sight fishing, you have to understand the basics of ‘light transmission control’. The simple is, Yellow lens technology allows more light thru the lens. It blocks less sunlight, so you are gaining light vs. grey or copper lens (with the exception of the C50 which has my curiousity!). Go ahead and get yourself some yellow lenses and try them out. I bet you don’t take them off all day (in Florida anyway).

The Y35 Lens is amazing what it does to brighten up and ‘electrify’ an otherwise grey and gloomy day.   When you mix in the black tannin water of Florida, the Y35 has a whole new meaning.  These things pierce thru that clear black water we all strain our eyes to just see a little further, a little deeper, and detect a fish or a bed that much further away.    Here are the advantages to a Yellow lens:

  • Added light:  Great for seeing in black water, grey days, and cloudy conditions, especially when you are sight fishing.  Yellow lenses allow more light thru, and are a tool of serious sight fishermen.   Serious anglers have multiple sunglasses and lenses to approach certain situations, and these yellow lenses from Kaenon will be something you will appreciate and use regularly in your fishing.
  • Added contrast and detail:  You can detect beds further away (light spot in dark water) or dark fish tail against light spot better.  Or when it comes to detail, you can make out the shape and/or color of a fish better (vs. confusing it with grass or moss).   Think about competition skeet and trap shooting.  Those guys where yellow lenses, and I’m guessing it’s just for many of the same reasons.  I find even on the bright bluebird days of Okeechobee, yellow lenses work just fine middle of the day, not just the low light and grey days.   With the dark water of places like Okeechobee, the yellow lenses of my Y35 Kaenon Hardcores just work all day long, rain or shine, to give me added edge to see better.
  • Electrify your eyes:  I find the Kaenon Y35 lens a lot like being in a room with a black light.  Your eyes take a minute to adjust, but once you get the feel for them, the darks and lights really stand out and contrast each other. It’s like playing with the color levels of a digital photo editing tool.  Adding light or otherwise taking away/filtering out darkness, can make a photo come out great, whereas natively, it might have been really too dark to make out whatever you took the picture of.   Editing software makes it possible to make digital photos come out best.  Use this same mentality to choose colors of lenses to match the water and lighting of your fishing spot.  Yellow lenses electrify your vision and add contrast and detail you wouldn’t otherwise get.   Again, think sight fishing where you are looking for the black tails on the fish, lateral lines,  the white belly of a fish nosing down on your bait, looking for light spots out at the edge of your horizontal range, where you can best anchor down/setup on the bed to assess if a fish is there, and all the things you strive for perfection when sight fishing.   Yellow lenses are just an aid to help your vision to see more fish, beds and better see your bait and “the bed fishing theater” while sight fishing.
  • Seeing your bait:  It is no accident the colors of 5″ Big Hammer swimbaits (bright white, chartreuse/yellows really stick out with Y35 lenses on) I tend to throw at big bed fish ala the 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fish Rig, tend to contrast nicely and be highly visible with the Y35 lenses.
  • Boat Driving:  There are plenty of occassion to wear your Y35 Kaenon Hard Kores when operating your boat.  Morning take-off, and just any grey/cloudy dark conditions are ideal for using the Y35 lenses to add some light and just give you better visibility driving in the exposed outdoors at 65-70 MPH.
  • Hipster Alert:  You can wear your Y35 Kaenon’s out to nightclubs and trendy bars!!
Yellow? You hear me? Kaenon Hard Kores with the Y35 lens are a key tool to my bed fishing, especially in Florida. The fish, your bait, and the beds all tend to contrast in the dark water better with a yellow lens.

I definitely recommend getting yourself into a yellow lens for fishing the dark water of Florida and just to have as a tool in grey/cloudy conditions and perhaps for driving your boat.  I wear the Kaenon Hard Kore frame, because I find it incredibly light weight, sporty, and comfortable. I can wear them all day and don’t feel the fatigue of the nose or ear pieces on my head.   You have a few frames to choose from from Kaenon that offer the Y35 lens.  Here are the others frames that have the Y35 lens:  The Arlo, The Kanvas, and The Rhino.

FishStrong published a review of the Kaenon Kores with the C12 (Copper) lens.  Yellow lenses are a specialty thing, and definitely a tool to have, especially if you like “lookin’ at ’em” .  But copper lenses, as Hale White from FishStrong explains, are the most universally useful.  Take a look at  FishStrong’s write up HERE.    You can expect us to be back with our own take on the copper and grey lenses, and expect more collaboration with us and FishStrong too.

Sight fishing is like anything else, you need a system. Yellow lenses are part of my system and I encourage you to give it a try in the black water especially.

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig

Published: 3 April 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Big Hammer, P-Line, Polarized Fishing Glasses, Rigging, Sight Fishing, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD
The Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig is part of a system. It's a system that involves using finesse baits and bigbaits to aggravate a fish into biting. The swimbait is fished as an 'intruder' and provides a power fishing approach to big fish, the female kind usually, but also good for the better than dink males you might need in a tournament situation.

We shared this rig in Southern Trout Eaters.  We have been getting asked a lot of questions about it, and Spring has sprung, so here goes.    Think of the 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig as a workhorse bed fishing bait, geared for ‘bigger’ fish.   The one rod you have rigged up in case you come up on or purposely hunt big fish on  beds.   We’ve had a few years to validate this rig, in the mountains, and in the grass of Okeechobee and Seminole.  I credit my friend and trophy bass hunter from the Bay Area, Rob Belloni, for sharing the fundamental of his Big Hammer Texas Rig with me. I’ve sorta dumbed it down since I’m usually not hunting double digit fish with it, most of my world, 4-9 pounders are king, with chances at double digits for sure though.    I’ve made my own adjustments and have made it a staple in my sight fishing system.   Rob has fooled giants, I have now fooled quite a few 4-9 pounders with it in multiple Southern States.   This is a great trophy and tournament style of sight fishing, and it points out the need for a knock out punch in your bed fishing arsenal.

The 5" Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig. 5" Big Hammer, rigged flat side up. Just bury your hook point enough to keep the bait weedless and free from snagging the fish, but able to sting one that just barely grabs it. Peg your weight, pitch and hop this thing around larger bed fish and see what happens.

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig:

Bait: 5″ Big Hammer Swimbait  (colors:  Pearl, Invader, Glowbug, Silver Phantom, Chartreuse, Fire tiger)

Sinker: 3/4 to 1 ounce Picasso Tungsten Weight or Pro-Metal Weights (since you just need ‘weight’ high performance tungsten not 100% necessary.)  (pegged)

Hook: 5/0 Owner Wide Gap Offset Worm Hook

Line: 25# P-Line CXX Xtra Strong w/ Palomar knot

Glasses:  Kaenon Hard Kore Y35 or C12 Lens

Reel: Shimano Curado CU200G6

Rods: Powell 7’10” MH (7105) Flipping Rod or Okuma Guide Select 7’6″ Heavy Casting (761H)

This 7'10" Powell Flipping Rod is a favorite all purpose 'heavy pitching' rod, for baits >1 ounce but not more than 1.5 or so. ie the Medlock Jig, 5" Big Hammer Rig, pitching 3/4 -1 ounce creature baits in grass, and light punching. The rod has guts. I think of it as a heavy pitching stick. I have whipped some nice fish with this rod. The short handle makes it handle and fish nicely, but long enough for leverage.

When you look at the trends in where bed/sight fishing is going, you will notice certain swimbaits and softbaits have flat sides or can be rigged flat side up are doing the most damage out there.  More cutting edge, more geared towards targeting bigger fish or a better mouse trap for fooling weary pressured fish.   The Dean Rojas Warmouth,  and the Jackall Clone Gill 2.5 and the Mission Fish are all part of the big picture of modern sight fishing.  All have wild variations and secret rigging and tricks I’m sure. I know the Hammer and Mission Fish best, both part of my toolkit.  Believe me when I tell you I use a drop shot a lot when sight fishing.  You need a big knock out punch and you need finesse, so I use the Mission Fish and Hammer as my big knockout punches, and drop shot/wacky and light texas rigs like the Warmouth and Clone Gill as my finesse approach.  I thought it important to note flat side up  or just flat sided bed fishing baits, have something about their swagger.  Flat sides, square/boot/slight swallow tails, realism, perch/bluegill profiles, buoyancy, weedlessness, unique vortex, and big fish attraction.   The Lateral Perch from PowerTackle is a derivative here, and likely a bed fishing bait for someone out there, but too has the this flat side up profile and swim, and is worth noting. I cannot speak to how well the Lateral Perch catches fish, but all of the other named baits I’m 100% certain catch fish on beds really well, and have too much in common not to connect the dots.   They all fish differently, but in the grand scheme of sight fishing, you better have tools that can be drop shotted, pitched, weightless/wackied, hopped, swam, and texas rigged if you want to be competitive.   Don’t just limit yourself to white tubes, craws and creature baits.  Be thinking perch/bluegill too.

The Okuma 7'6" MH Rod getting it done too. You need some 7'6" and shorter than 8' rods for fishing baits like the Mission Fish. This is an even beefier style of pitching stick vs. the Powell, but it takes the conversation to more like 2-6 ounce baits no problem. I liked using it for the 5" Big Hammer rig too. Lots of power and fished very nicely. The rod still has good feel even though my rig was under weighted for the rod, and it just worked for me.

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig is an excellent sight fishing system.  You can see your bait very well in the black Florida water, and it shows up well fishing a bed fish in >8 feet of water in clear water.   The rig has ample weight involved, which means you can ‘rapid fire’ and harass a fish with the bait, pushing the fish around, and firing them up into biting.  The bait hops really well, and has the square tailed flap on the way back down to the bottom.  It’s more of a hop hop and slight drag and shake style of  bait.  The fish love to ‘catch’ the bait coming back down to the bottom, with a well placed and timed hop.  The 5″ Big Hammer gets bigger bed fish to bite and has an excellent hook-up and land ratio.  There is very little risk of foul hooking or snagging a fish, with the Texas rigged nature of the bait, which also opens up the ability to bounce the rig off of the side, head and tail of the fish, making them eat it.   You can expect to see a sight fishing production from us in the near future, highlighting this rig.  We gave a sneak peak of the bait underwater in our Lake Seminole FLW Evestart Preview video, in case you missed it.