I have trolled and bottom fished from my kayak. In neither case did I use a rod. My game was mostly blues and stripers with some porgies while trolling. I used a hand winding thingermajig that boaters world and other boat stores sell to wind up ski rope. I used something heavy like 50 lb test and trolled with spoons to good effect. I also carried a net, a cutting board, a knife, and one of those little squeeze bottles with the built in popup straw...filled with cheap tequilla. Blues must be cleaned quickly or they get nasty tasting..ergo the onboard processing. A little shot of tequilla into the gills will almost immediately knock the fish out at which point it can be handled, cleaned, etc with no danger to yourself and seemingly no pain to fish (having a striper that is in anything other than whole condition is illegal in my neck of the woods BTW). I also carried a small net, a glove, a minitackle box with an extra swivel or two and a few wire leaders. I have been pretty successful doing this in LI Sound, but with frenzied blues you do not have to be a particularly skillful fisher to bring a fish home with you.

Dave