5 Tips for Hunting from a Kayak

You’ve read a lot at this point about your setup, but I want to share a bit of kayak hunting tactics here. If you’ve decided you want to start kayak hunting, it’s likely due to wanting to get away from a lot of hunter pressure in your area. I have had minimal human intrusion in my kayak hunts, but when I do, it’s typically due to my lack of preparation and scouting that was to blame. 

I do most of my scouting on onX maps. Normally I start with a launch point and try to find the public areas within about a 7 mile boat ride that are the furthest away from any parking area or road system. However, there have been just a couple of occasions that I found an area that was thought to be land/water locked, only to get there and find a well used gravel road leading right into the parcel. 

Your mapping app is great, but you can not beat in-person intel. For all of the areas I hunt now, I will take some time to drive around the entire radius of the property to check every possible access point, and searching for roads that may not show up on the map. 

There’s nothing worse than paddling for an hour or two, only to realize there’s a road system 100 yards from your destination. Distance, water, and terrain are the main things that deter most hunters from going into an area. Something I always do is try to make sure I’m at least a mile away from any walk-in access spot, with either steep terrain or some sort of water system between. If I don’t have that, then I’m assuming there are people hunting it on a regular basis. That doesn’t mean there aren’t deer in the area, but just that it might be easier to walk in than kayak.