This is the view from my seat, "close to the water". The majority of my fishing right now is done from a fishing kayak. I'm close to the water every time I go out as the water is only a couple inches away on all sides. Being that close helps you connect to the water and yet it also shows you how truly small we are in comparison. Being able to put the kayak into almost any body of water has given me a chance to get closer to many of NC's diverse waters - ponds, rivers and lakes in the Triangle, along with inshore saltwater creeks, bays and marshes from Beaufort down to Wrightsville. I've seen some amazing places that my trailered fishing boat just wasn't able to take me (and I sold it).

I've gained an appreciation for North Carolina's waters as a sustainer of life, a source of recreation, and a precious resource to be stewarded and passed on to our children and their children and the generations to follow. Getting this close to the water has led me to become active in monitoring environmental cleanup activities, supporting organizations that watch over our waters and even doing some analysis of the water levels of Piedmont lakes as they've risen and fallen with the drought this summer. I look forward to fishing more and different places in the coming year, and growing even closer to North Carolina waters.

I'd like to say thanks to NCangler and the NCangler.com family for embracing the kayak fishing community in North Carolina and giving us access to the vast resources here on NCangler.com. I was a devoted bass fisherman before I took up kayak fishing and I immediately recognized that NCangler.com was different than the other bass fishing communities I frequented in the way of a helpful attitude and tolerance for beginners. We've proven as a community over the last year that we can share tips, techniques and tactics, regardless of whether we're fishing from a kayak, a powerboat, or a pair of sneakers on the shore.

We've seen incredible growth in the numbers of kayakers on NCangler.com this year, as evidenced by the red dots on the NC Kayak Anglers Map:

This reflects the growth of kayak fishing in general, but it also reflects the amount of kayak-friendly water we have here in North Carolina. It really is a great time and place to be an NC Kayak Angler.

I don't claim to be among the state's foremost experts in kayak fishing. Its a big state with lots of different types of water and many folks who've been fishing from kayaks longer than me. We're lucky to be able to tap folks like druminator (Ashley) who runs the Kayak Fishing North Carolina yahoo group, yak4fish (Phillip) who is at the forefront of rigging and design, and especially gifted with cameras and video equipment, and erayyak (Erick) who just moved up from Florida where he was a web community moderator, activities coordinator and ran a kayak fishing tournament series in the Tampa area. I expect to continue looking to them for help in finding fish, getting my toes out of my pictures, and energizing the community, as well as earning both support and criticism (from these guys and others) on these blog posts.

I'll blog in the kayak space, but it won't be exclusive to kayaks. Plenty of other things to talk about, especially my (unhealthy?) fascination with artificial bass lures, internet software, some of the less visible areas of NCangler.com (Reviews - we must have more Reviews!), environmental issues and more. Maybe we'll even see other kayak angling blogs in the future to share the load and I can spend more time in these other spaces.

I was thinking I'd start with a Kayak Angling series consisting of 4 or 5 "articles":

• Myths about kayak fishing
• Choosing a fishing kayak
• Rigging a fishing kayak
• Transporting and storing fishing kayaks

I know of at least one nearly-completed article on choosing a kayak paddle that needs to come into the light - maybe I can use my blogging powers to coax that out of the author, who will remain almost nameless (since he's already been named above ). I really enjoy Al K's blog posts that intertwine pictures with the story, and I'm inclined to post some of my reports that way here too.

I'm wide open to suggestions on other topics and accepting feedback is part of the job description, so let me know if there's something you'd like to see (or something you'd like me to retract!).