By Paul Lebowitz

In the new book Kayak Fishing the Ultimate Guide, authors Captain Scott Null and Joel McBride recruit pro angler Dean “Slowride” Thomas to demonstrate his slick fish-handling moves. Good choice – Thomas was among the first to discover the stealthy craft’s deadly effectiveness on the redfish of the Gulf Coast flats.

Thomas came to kayak fishing by way of the Texas oil fields. He’d always dreamed of working as a guide, but didn’t have the guts to make the risky jump until he hit 35 and realized time was running short.

“I looked at the older dudes around me. They were broken down. I decided if I didn’t quit my job I’d never do it,” Thomas says.

He headed for the water and never looked back, throwing himself into his new career with a roughneck’s gritty work ethic.

“You’re not going to make it if you don’t sacrifice,” Thomas says.

While earning his bones in those lean, early days as a fishing guide, Thomas was given a sit-on-top kayak as payment for engine work at a marina. Instead of selling the odd craft (at the time kayaks were foreign objects in coastal Texas), Thomas fell in love with paddling.

“From my first day in a kayak I understood what I could do with that boat,” Thomas says. His buddies called him crazy – Thomas knew differently.

“You can get up close and personal with fish. They never hear you coming,” Thomas says. 

Six years later Thomas spends his days stalking powerful redfish in the shallow sea grass beds of Aransas Pass, where he and his wife operate a guide service and kayak rental and outfitting business.  

Thomas shares his hard-won strategy for corralling big fish from the confines of a kayak.

1. Enjoy the ride: You cannot horse or muscle a fish. On a kayak you have to go along. When you hook up, pick up your feet and enjoy the sleigh ride.

2. Take your time: Play the fish out. Don’t reel him in while he’s still fired up. Bad things happen when a fish comes to the boat full of energy. If it has hooks hanging out of its mouth, the first thing that fish is going to find is your leg.

I constantly tell people to let that fish run. I know every natural instinct is to just get him in. Instead, let the fish do what he’s going to do. Let him fight until he goes belly up.    
 
3. Boat that beast: Leaving a lot of line out, point the rod tip straight up in the air and swim the fish over to the boat. We use a lip gripper; nets are cumbersome and catch hooks and the wind.