PENNINGTON BILL
“PAPA BILL” MENTORS THE NORCAL CREW
A distinctive laugh lights up the fog off the craggy coast of tiny Elk, California. It’s a jolly one, full of good spirit. It’s Papa Bill’s. “How did I get the nickname? I’m the father
of NCKA I guess,” Bill Pennington explains. The founder of NorthernCaliforniaKayakAnglers. com, a vibrant online community, can scarcely believe how the acorn he planted has grown into a mighty oak with 1,500 members. “I’m just in awe about the whole thing. It’s not so much about me; I just make sure it keeps working,” Pennington says. Once a small bulletin board, the site has spawned a series of tournaments, a year-long fishing contest, and serves as a rallying point to protect beach and fishing access. Considering Northern California’s rough and cold ocean, the quick rise of the site is somewhat surprising. “There are a lot of people, probably the sane ones, who say there’s no way I’m going on the ocean. Catching fish has to be a passion if you’re going to climb on a small piece of plastic. Don’t watch Shark Week either; you don’t want to worry about the landlord all day,” Pennington says. A lifelong fisherman, Pennington was on a salmon charter just outside Moss Landing when
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he experienced his kayak fishing revelation. Shortly thereafter he paddled a Cobra Triple out of the harbor with his father. “It was one of those amazing days, absolutely calm, as flat as this floor,” Pennington recalls. The pair scored a double limit of big king salmon. “It’s my top memory, special because it was with my dad,” Pennington says, hinting at NCKA’s popularity. The website’s foundation is shared good times on the water. —Paul Lebowitz
FIL SPENCER
EARLY ADOPTER COMES FULL CIRCLE A glance at Capt. Fil “Fishman” Spencer’s resume will tell you he’s an accomplished angler: 18 Texas state or water body records, two dozen top-three tournament finishes and state and national “Kayak Angler of the Year” awards in 2005. What Spencer’s resume won’t convey is the joy he gets from introducing others to kayak fishing. “I love the sport so much because no matter how stressed out you are—whatever kind of stress you have, whether it’s work, family, money or whatever—being able to go out on a kayak and just slow down, whether you catch anything or not, is a very special kind of thing,” Spencer says. Spencer was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, and still specializes in Coastal Bend
waters when guiding clients. He made his first paddle craft more than two decades ago from an old sailboard on which he mounted a swiveling boat seat. That was after a surfboard with a milk crate strapped to it proved less than satisfactory. When Ocean Kayak arrived in Texas with their first sit-on-top in the late ‘80s, Spencer was one of the first South Texas anglers to buy one. “I still have the boat,” he says. “It has the signature of the guy who founded Ocean Kayaks on the back—it’s that old.” Success on the tournament circuit brought him full circle, and in 2005 he officially joined Team
Ocean Kayak as a sponsored angler, which gives him the opportunity to do his second-favorite thing: talk about kayak fishing. Demo days and presentations fill almost every weekend through the spring. “We have 28 sponsors for the team, and we’re not going to shove anything down your throat,” Spencer says. “We really don’t care what you’re paddling or what kind of rod and reel you’re using—we just want more people to get out there and enjoy the sport safely.”—Aaron Reed
TEXAS TOMBOY TAKES A CHANCE ON KAYAKS “I was my father’s favorite son,” says Sally Ann Moffett. She grew up on the shores of the Great Lakes with her parents and younger sister Kim, and now plies the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Texas’ mid-coast—her home for more than 25 years. Art Dulski would be proud, indeed, to know his elder daughter is a full-time fishing guide who holds both a 100-ton Master Captain license and a 25-ton near- coastal Master Captain license. But power craft for Moffett are simply a means to an end: a way to transport her kayaks to the back lakes of a barrier island. For in these mangrove-rimmed, soft-bottomed-but-gin-clear lakes—which neither boat nor wade-fisher can traverse— giant copper redfish bottom-feed on mollusk, shrimp and crab in waters so shallow their dorsal fins carve telltale arcs in the air. Moffett, the first woman fly-fishing guide on the Texas
SALLY ANN MOFFETT
coast, also pioneered the use of kayaks to stealthily stalk these bronze beauties. Her first forays met with derision among fellow guides, who told her that clients would not want to pay to paddle their own boats, sight-cast or even fly-fish. Moffett’s passionate persistence paid off: today, kayak-based fly-fishing is a hot draw on the Texas coast. Custom racks hold kayaks at the ready on Moffett’s
trim NewWater Boatworks Curlew for the short ride from Rockport across the bay to San Jose Island. Deftly dropping anchor, Moffett slips two kayaks into the shallows, and we step aboard, fly rods at the ready. Moffett scans the surface, dips her paddle and wheels about: A skein of nervous shrimp unfurls before a pursuing predator. As she drops the fly in front of the redfish’s nose, her blonde ponytail wags like a yellow lab’s joyous tail and a smile as big as the Texas dawn lights her face. —Susan L. Ebert
www.kayakanglermag.com… 31
PHOTO: SUSAN L. EBERT
PHOTO: PAUL LEBOWITZ
PHOTO: AARON REED
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