I grew up in Kodiak, Alaska. Need I say more about where my fishing career began? Until I was 14 and moved away from Alaska fishing was, quite literally, life. During the Summers my brothers, friends and I would stay out for dozens of hours at a time Fly Fishing for 5 different species of salmon and 3 species of trout in the streams and rivers. Every once and a while I was able to go out on a boat and catch Cod and Halibut. Living in Alaska was a fisherman's paradise.
At 14 my family moved to North Carolina where I learned how to bass fish and was even a pier rat when I got my drivers license. After high school I joined the Air Force and was sent to Washington for the next 6 years. I was used to fishing in this kind of place and fell right back into fly fishing for trout but was able to apply some warm water tactics I learned in NC to fly fishing for smallmouth. And while fly fishing for smallmouth one day I saw something that would change my view on the limitations of fishing forever; A guy paddled by on a long touring style kayak with a single rod holder mounted in front of him.
The year was 2004 and I started looking into "Kayak Fishing." I knew I wanted to try it but due to my job in the Air Force I was unable to commit to buying one. Fast forward to 2006. I moved back to NC and got a job with Blackwater and was still unable to get a kayak due to the time requirements and travel associated with that type of work, but then I met my wife and everything changed. I quit Blackwater in 2010, moved to VA, got married and in February 2011 I FINALLY got my first kayak.
I have since successfully targeted and caught nearly all the game fish on both fly and conventional tackle here in the Chesapeake bay, James river and even on the Potomac. For this year of 2014 I have decided to start my own "Trophy Quest" for all the biggest fish that come and go in our home waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
For the year of 2014 I will be a part of the Virginia Marine Resource Commission Tagging program. I will be catching, measuring, reporting location caught and determining the health of the fish before tagging and releasing the fish. All of this information will be turned over to the VMRC to help with the conservation efforts of the fish we like to catch.
I have recently teamed up with David Sanders as a steward of our waterways by becoming an Area Cleanup Coordinator for the Virginia Adopt-A-Stream Program and have taken charge of all of Rudee Inlet and Owl Creek. Also I have just become one of seven board members for one of the worlds largest kayak fishing clubs; TKAA or Tidewater Kayak Anglers Association.
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Michael Manning
I grew up here in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Starting young I was fishing from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and the small lakes around eastern Virginia. Most of my teaching came from my dad, who took me fishing about 4 times a week after working 12 hour days at the shipyard. The rest of my "training" came from just being curious. I would walk up and down the piers and rocks, staring into every bucket and asking how every lure or bait worked and eventually, I was out-fishing my dad by the age of 10. Our typical day would consist of cast netting a ton of mullet or menhaden, and fishing for red drum, speckled and grey trout, flounder, striper, blues, and the list goes on and on.
When I finished high school, I joined the Marine Corps and at the young age of 18, I was shipped off to Okinawa, Japan for a 2 year sentence. Okinawa is a reef island that's 17 miles wide and 60 miles long, so of course I had to find out how to fish it. I spend almost all of my free time riding a mountain bike with rod holders to the reefs and tackle shops to learn how to catch their amazing reef fish. After a while I figured out that you can either cast lures that look like squid to catch bigger squid, use a 16 foot rod with a crappie reel and a giant bobber to catch the reef fish, or spear fish the reef while snorkeling, which was amazing. It was an awesome experience that I will never forget.
While on leave back in Virginia Beach in 2007, I was invited to go kayak fishing with the Tidewater Kayak Anglers Association (TKAA) Hero's on the Water chapter. This was my first time ever being in and fishing from a kayak and I won the mini-tournament with a nice 19" flounder out of Rudee Inlet, I was hooked. After completing my 2 years in Japan I was stationed in San Diego, California, where I became a lake/pier bum again catching large mouth bass, catfish, calico bass, lizard fish, baby halibut, and angel sharks. I completed a tour in Afghanistan and said goodbye to the marines with my amazing wife and headed back home to Virginia Beach. This is where I hooked back up with TKAA and finally bought my first fishing kayak in 2011.
Since then I have fished far beyond my local haunts and extended my reach further than ever expected with my fishing kayak. This year, with the help of Ryan, I have picked up fly fishing in salt and fresh water. I have also started recording my citation fish to add some certificates to the walls of my man cave.
Recently I have been teaming up with fishing gear companies to expand my gear and tackle collection and to become a sponsored angler. In the past few months I have teamed up with Denali Rods and Butter-it baits as a pro staff member.
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