Had my final Kansas Kayak Anglers tournament of the year this Saturday. I prefished Friday and it went as good as it could have possibly gone. I was torn between 2 parts of the lake, a creek and then one arm of the lake. I started in the creek, it was horrible. I caught 4 dinks and a 17 incher and the mosquitoes were about to carry me away, so I moved to my other area. With the feeling that I was going to end up fishing that area, I removed my hooks and put on screwlocks to attached my soft plastics. I ended up getting around 30 bites in 4-5 hours on a lake I'd usually be pumped about getting 10 bites in a day this time of year. I did stick a couple fish on a Ned and bladed jig just because there was no way to remove the hook, one would have been a heartbreaker on tournament day.
Tournament morning, I launched under a bright, Harvest Moon and sat in the cool air at a picnic table by myself for about an hour. I've been close many times this year to winning and I felt like I finally had the area to win, my heart was racing the whole time and time just drug by. I was sure I would be fishing with several people around me, but to my surprise, I was the only kayak in the cove I started in. My alarm went off, I took a deep breath and started casting one of my Code Blue bladed jigs. 3 cast into the morning, I got slack knocked into my line on the shallow flat I started on and the fish went nuts thrashing around and charged the kayak. I hurried the net out and she tailwalked right in. I was off and running with a thick 18.25" fish.
Really thought I was going to smash them at this point. 2 hours later, I had caught a 9, 10, 11, and 13 inch fish to finish up my limit and the bites were not happening like they were the day before. I watched an old man catch a 20+ inch fish when he was burning in a popper. It was an awesome bite and his excitement was great, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt my feelings a little bit. I ran back through the cove a second time and culled up a little bit with a 13.5" fish, but I decided to work on out of my starting spot. I got to a point and pitched to a tree and there was a fish on it immediately. Not a big fish by any means, but that little 14.5" fish felt huge compared to what I had been catching.
I had some fish start busting by my kayak and culled another little 13.5" fish swimming a white Ned. Down the bank a little further, I wasn't feeling great, it was getting to be midmorning and I was struggling way more than I thought. I cast my little power worm to a stump and mumbled to myself about how I never catch anything good off this stump. I fished it out a little deeper than I had been and got a light bite. It was on the surface real quick after the hookset and in the net just about as fast. My second solid fish of the day was right at 18".
I fished all through the rest of that creek arm and was only catching a small fish here and there, except I did find that heartbreaker again.
I tried a bigger worm that I'd got a lot of bites on the day before but they just weren't eating it. I'd noticed a lot of bluegills huddled tight to the trees and thought maybe they were eating those gills instead of the huge schools of tiny shad I'd been seeing. I switched my little power worm to a Rage Menace in watermelon/red with the tail dipped in chartreuse JJ's. I was really struggling at this point. It was 1pm, lines out was 2:30 and I still had 3 fish under 15" in my bag. I think it was my second cast just kind of in between some trees on a rocky point that my line started moving off on the initial fall. The fish wrapped me around a tree, which is about a kiss of death in a lake with zebra mussels, but my 15lb Tatsu held and worked it back around the tree. I peddled backwards trying to get a better angle and ended up on top of a submerged stump, trying not to roll my kayak while I was netting the fish. She cooperated and jumped right in the net for me. Another solid keeper that went 17.75" had me feeling like I'd made a good change.
Just a little ways around the back of that cove was a hedge tree that I'd missed 2 bites in that day. I pulled up to it and cast that Menace into it. A fish bit right away and pulled me towards the tree but again I managed to wrestle it away. The fish that had beat me the 2 previous times that day turned out to be another 18 incher.
That fish bit at about 2pm and would be my last cull. I hadn't looked at the leaderboard since 10am and had no idea what it looked like when I submitted my 86.50" bag. At the awards, everyone was talking about tough fishing but that doesn't ever mean that someone didn't still smack them. I was afraid that little 14.5" fish was going to be the reason I got beat. As it turned out, I didn't need the last 18" fish and would have been fine with the 14.5" and the last 13.75" fish that the 18" fish culled out.
It was a tough day, the limits drop really fast after that top 5 into the 60's, then a couple 50's, with some 0's at the bottom. Made me feel good to finally put everything together and walk away with a win and one of the awesome plaques that the winner gets.
