Kayak Bass Fishing National Championship Day 1 - March 31st, 2017

              
Today was day of the the KBF National Championship. 359 kayak anglers from 37 different states all of who had beat the odds to even qualify were here to fish for a first place prize of $40,500 and a total purse payout of $116,000. I made it to my spot before the 6:30am start time, put my pole down and took a second to savor the moment before the tournament began. The lake was calm all except for a small breeze. As soon as my watch hit 6:30 I started fishing. I immediately began getting bit. I had a 74 inch 5 fish limit quickly by 7:15am and had climbed up the leaderboard to 9th place in the first hour. After that I continued to catch short fish that would not allow me to upgrade at all. Finally at 2pm I caught a 17.5 inch smallmouth that help me move up to 78.75 inches putting me in 112th place out of 359 anglers. With this many anglers who have this much talent it takes very little to slide down the leader board. This was the largest kayak angler tournament to date and had the deepest talent of any I could imagine being assembled. Many of these guys have full sponsorships, are professional guides, and have written books and magazines on yak fishing. I felt pretty good going into day 2. I had found a pattern, fished  very clean loosing no fish and missing no hits. At day one weigh in I got to meet Drew Gregory, the designer of the Jackson Coosa and Coosa HD. I have been fishing and loving this guys kayaks since they launched in 2011. It was a really cool experience to meet him and I even got him to sign my HD. Probably one of my most memorable experiences from the KBF NC.

Tornado Warning - March 30th, 2017

    
Today fishing was limited because we got a later start and their was very high wind most all day. In fact we had a tornado warning at one point in the day around 2pm. There was only a very few small protected bays and coves that were fishable. We got lucky though and found a creek point off of the blood river that held some fish in a pocket eddy that the wind was creating. I felt pretty good about using river tactics on a 160,000 acre lake to build a productive pattern.  Today was in interesting test in on the lake problem solving to find bites. I have never been on a lake that had so few boats on it as I saw today. I literally only saw one all day and on a lake of this size in the spring that is odd. I ended up landing 14 fish out of that spot without moving more than 40 yards and many of them were >15 inches. I started using a change up worm color. After I had caught a couple fish out of a given spot I would change to a different color and pick up a couple more. Once I even changed a third time and got another couple. The square bill pattern continues to produce periodically as well.

Have Yak Will Travel- March 29th, 2017

        
Today Jared and I prefished three more area in an effort to find where we wanted to spend our time. We talked to everybody and anybody who would talk to us at gas stations and launch ramps about where the fish are and what they were hitting. I landed a 19.25 inch bass early off of a square bill on a wind blown rocky point. A pattern was starting to come together. I caught a few up shallow on a plopper but they were all dinks. The bigger fish seemed to be holding on secondary points that had rock with close access to main channel. It was great day of traveling and fishing on Kentucky lake.

All the Small Things- March 28th, 2017

           
Today was a mixed bag sort of day and the first of two prefishing days prior to the KBF NC's two tournament days. I did not want to beat any one spot up too much and did a lot of exploring and trying different lures. Jared and I fished three different places. I got bit on square bills in green tomato craw and magnum trick worms. We hit up three different areas by days end. I landed only small fish less than 12 inches along with a crappie or croppie as they call them in Kentucy and a sauger. My friend and fellow Summers County Kayak Bass Angler Brian Aliff had a day of a different sort. He landed a 25 inch 10 pound 2 oz. monster largemouth. The sad part is had he waited just one more day until the big bass brawl prefishing event began he would have ended up winning a $5,600 kayak package. Heck of a fish brain. A fun day to spend on the lake. We drove by and through and elk persever in Kentucky along the trace road. It was cool to see bison and elk both roaming open fields. We also saw some apache attack helicopters and blackhawks fly over at one point in the day.

Lighting Delay on Arrival- March 27th, 2017

    
After an 8.5 hour drive from Hinton, WV to Kentucky lake Jared and I were greeted with cloud to ground lighting. We got to fish an hour and 15 minutes at Moor's landing. I caught one largemouth off a riprap retaining wall and missed a big drum on a main lake point. Then the storm hit and did not let up until well after dark. We used the rest of the day to get settled into our house along with 11 other KBF NC qualifiers from WV. My initial impression of Kentucky lake is that it is beyond huge. KY lake is 163,000 acres, 2054 miles of shore line, and is 5 miles wide in sections. Not exactly yak water. But we will improvise and see what we can do. The lake itself is not overly developed like Smith or Guntersville. The land around it is wilderness for the most part that is full of wildlife. You gotta love that.

First Day of Spring- March 20th, 2017

      

On this the first Spring day of 2017 I went to Shanklins solo for a day of fishing. It started off cold but warmed up as the day went on. The water coming down from Clayor was dropping which made the bite hard to figure. With water falling and clear the smallie bite was scarce. I did manage to catch 2 smallies on green pumpkin tubes fished deadstick in water six feet deep or deeper that had moving water nearby. The squirrel pick came from as I was walking back to my truck he ran into and outhouse and jumped down the hole to get away from me. It did not take him long to jump back out. I saw only one other person all day long. Anyday you see more bald eagles than people you had a good day.

Miles floated = 1.75

Time fished = 4.25 hours

Fish per minute = 127.5 minute

Fish Lengths = 14" and 16"