MIKE LEGGETT: OUTDOORS

BURNET COUNTY — Unmistakable big bass splashes banged in ricochets off sheer granite walls that ringed the 10-acre gravel pit 30 feet high all round. All directions at once.

Being neither bat nor submarine, and thus unschooled in the subtleties of echo location, I couldn't exactly tell where Trey Carpenter was floating and fighting a chunky largemouth bass. A self-satisfied "Ha, hah," lay low across the water, though, and I poked the nose of my ocean kayak through a slit in half-submerged willows and spied Carpenter landing a fat, spawning fish.

"That's what I'm talking about," said Carpenter, who had invited me to join him for a quick morning's outing on the private tank close to Marble Falls.

Once a source of prized granite gravel for driveways and roads, the pit is now a bass haven. Coontail moss, green willows and underwater brush piles harbor a population of strong, healthy and large bass. Some fish over seven pounds have been caught here, and on our morning of fishing we never caught a small fish.

"I love doing this out of a kayak," Carpenter said.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist has bought nine of them that he uses for himself and his family and anyone else who might need one on a fishing trip. The little boats are light, reasonably stable and can cost as much as a couple of thousand new, but Carpenter has been buying his off the Internet for not much money and lots of good fishing.

"You can get back into this thick brush if you need to and I even use an anchor when I want to hold the boat and fish one area for a while," he said.

Of course, kayaks are nothing new to Texas anglers, though they are a growing area of fishing.

Think about it: Even new at $500 or more, kayaks cost just a fraction of a new or even used bass boat or saltwater craft.

They are maneuverable and easy to handle for women, kids and older folks.

Kayaks have dry storage for cameras, tackle and food.

They are quiet and stealthy, which means fish don't see them coming. And they are easily adaptable to almost any kind of fishing — saltwater bays and even offshore when dropped from a larger boat, small lakes and rivers and streams.

Lefty Ray Chapa has been using kayaks to fish Texas mid-coastal bays and saltwater lakes and has been teaching classes for beginners and veterans in both fly fishing and traditional tackle. He and a small group of members of Alamo Fly Fishers started using kayaks about 10 years ago, he said.

"The main thing about them is that when you're fishing from a kayak, it's much more like hunting than fishing," Chapa said. "You're on the same level as the fish, looking for a tail poking up or a wake going through the water. You're stalking the fish like you were hunting."

Close-in fishing, especially fly fishing, for trout and redfish in less than two feet of water demands that angler and boat be quiet, and the kayaks are just that: quiet. Chapa said he normally will paddle into an area with fish and then climb out to wade, towing the kayak behind him. However, there are now outriggers available that anglers can use to stabilize their boats and allow them the cast from the raised platform for better visibility.

Chapa recommends that anyone considering fishing from a kayak, especially in a Texas bay, should spend some time conditioning before they hit the water. Things can get tough paddling a couple of miles back across an open bay into an afternoon wind. "You need to work out," he said. "Kayaking is all day work."

But people are doing it. Chapa said 10 years ago he might see one kayak a week loaded onto a truck and headed down I-35 toward the Texas coast. Now there are at least 10 a day that pass through San Antonio on their way to fish. Carpenter takes his kayaks down to fish, as well.

"I just like fishing out of one a lot more than a johnboat," Carpenter says. "I think I catch more fish."