My First Kayak Fishing Tournament

[KSanford33]

I figured I'd put this out there for anyone to learn from my mistakes. 

 

I competed in my first kayak bass fishing tournament over the weekend at Cayuga Lake. I had a great time and learned a ton. For the TL;DR among you, I caught over 70" of fish during the tournament. Not bad for my first ever kayak tournament. The downside is that none of them was bass; they were all yellow perch. Here's what I learned:

 

Preparation is EVERYTHING. Check and recheck all of your gear. I made the mistake of not checking the batteries in my headlamp, and of course, they were dead. That left me to get everything ready using the light from my kayak light. As far as things go, this was not a huge mistake. Not to worry though, I make those later.

 

I did my pre-fishing the day before at the far northern tip of the lake since I already had my spot picked out for the actual tournament. I figured I'd see how things were there, and if they were great I could always adjust my plan for the actual tournament. The surface temperature was 55* (this will come into play later on), but all I caught was one rock bass, so I liked my choice of spots for the following day.

 

I launched the following day farther south down the lake and saw that the water temperature was 46*. I decided to stick with it and go to my spot. This was my first major mistake. In hindsight, a tournament -even a one dayer- is a marathon. Even if it took me an hour to load back up and drive to the far north of the lake, that hour would've been worth it. I adjusted my gameplan on the fly and decided since the water was significantly colder it'd be smart to downsize my presentations. So I went with a ned rigged craw. I started fishing downed trees, brush piles, and docks in my spot. This worked great, for the aforementioned perch. I tried moving offshore a little, into 15-20ft of water, and continued catching perch. All the while, the top 8 competitors in the tournament were all working the far northern end and all caught 90+ inches of bass. 

 

This will be far from my last kayak bass tournament. Like I said, I had a blast. And just like everything else, the learning curve is steepest at the beginning. My advice to anyone considering entering a kayak bass fishing tournament is do it. Everyone was very encouraging and all said your first dozen tournaments or so are just a big learning experience. It's ~8 hours of fun fishing anyway.

[Deleted account]

Launched further south in the early spring at that latitude and sticking it out there with that kind of temp difference would get you a healthy scratch for the next series, and a stint with Columbus, pointy wading pool or not....

LET'S GO RANGERS!

[Choporoz]

Where to launch can be such a challenging question on a large body of water.  Even moreso in the spring, when spawn stages vary up and down the lake or river.   Fish are acting different....temps range widely, and clarity can be all over the map.

  I, too, made wrong ramp decision this weekend.  I opted for what I thought was best temps, but clarity downlake seemed to be a bigger factor.

[KSanford33]

30 minutes ago, Deleted account said:

Launched further south in the early spring at that latitude and sticking it out there with that kind of temp difference would get you a healthy scratch for the next series, and a stint with Columbus, pointy wading pool or not....

LET'S GO RANGERS!

Hahaha! I've sat in the press box more times than I'd like to admit!

[BassNJake]

3 hours ago, Choporoz said:

Where to launch can be such a challenging question on a large body of water.  Even moreso in the spring, when spawn stages vary up and down the lake or river.   Fish are acting different....temps range widely, and clarity can be all over the map.

  I, too, made wrong ramp decision this weekend.  I opted for what I thought was best temps, but clarity downlake seemed to be a bigger factor.

There is no sliding scale for which variable will hold more weight.

 

Unless you knew where I was going to be, then go somewhere else

You can bet I've found the dead sea

[Bluebasser86]

Fishing kayak tournaments has been a very cerebral experience for me. So much more thought has to go into everything, from where I'm launching, to what tackle and rods I'm bringing, what direction is the wind blowing, do need to update the app on my phone, what time is lines in/out, what is my travel time to potential plan B's, do I have the right identifier, is my camera lens clean, so many things to worry about that are non-factors in boat tournaments. I think that this internal chess match I play with myself is part of what I enjoy so much about them. 

[BassNJake]

4 hours ago, KSanford33 said:

As far as things go, this was not a huge mistake. Not to worry though, I make those later.

 

I was cracking up after reading this !!

 

Glad you had a good time.

Tournament fishing is a shoulda, woulda, coulda type of game.

Like you said there were 8 guys up north catching them.

7 of those guys are deep in the shoulda, woulda, coulda's right about now.

They picked the right area, but what was the winner doing that they were not?

 

Did you try to upsize your presentation?

Keep any perch for dinner? lol

[KSanford33]

3 minutes ago, BassNJake said:

I was cracking up after reading this !!

 

Glad you had a good time.

Tournament fishing is a shoulda, woulda, coulda type of game.

Like you said there were 8 guys up north catching them.

7 of those guys are deep in the shoulda, woulda, coulda's right about now.

They picked the right area, but what was the winner doing that they were not?

 

Did you try to upsize your presentation?

Keep any perch for dinner? lol

I did, upsize that is, not keep any. Keeping fish on a kayak can be tough. 

 

When I was younger, I used to think tournaments -whether they were golf, hockey, fishing, whatever- were important. Now that I'm older I realize the only thing that is important about any of them is that you enjoy the time you're out there. 

 

When I tried to upsize, I went to a Rapala DT-6 and hooked a good size pike, but as you can imagine, they don't help in bass tournaments either.

[Hawkeye21]

That's what kayak tournament fishing is all about.  Decisions factor in so much more compared to a boat tournament.  Every one you fish is a learning experience.

[Dangerfield]

Fished my first kayak bass tournament on Saturday and I echo some of your critical points. Prior commitments didn't allow me the opportunity to pre-fish and it was this was my first time on Ramsey lake (not the one you're thinking of), and I spent far too much time exploring for weedy bays. For the anglers that did pre-fish, one guy had 88 inches before 7am and I didn't catch my first until 9:45am. Pre-fishing is a must.

 

We have tight regulations up here, but for this lake it's open year around because it's further north, and I need to bed fish. Well, I've never bed-fished ever, because the opportunity has never presented itself due to regulations. 

 

As I explored the lake for weedy areas, breaks and humps, things I'm used to on my homelake, I should have paid closer attention to the anglers around me. The further I explored the deeper side of the lake the less anglers I saw, while I thought this was an opportunity, it turned out to be a dead area/too deep for spawning smallmouth. Pay attention to your surroundings.

 

Pack a lunch and TONS of water.

 

Last one, some might call BS, but a fish finder probably would have help me understand the new lake a bit better. I did my research online, spent a ton of time on Navionics, and plotting points on Google Maps. But it was cumbersome, phone screen isn't ideal, the points were a shot in the dark and I didn't have sonar reading to confirm my research on the water.

[dickenscpa]

My very first kayak tournament was a comedy of errors. One mistake I didn't make was I actually read all of the KAST rules (or what ever rules your trail follows) My first tournament TourneyX had just made the app obsolete and went to TourneyX Pro. I took my pics thru the app instead of regular thru my phone. So I lost all my fish. I had to download the Pro version mid tournament and skunked the rest of the day.

 

Take MULTIPLE pics regularly thru your phone BEFORE letting the fish go and check you have a good pic. Identifier is visible, mouth is closed, etc. Then you can choose the best pic and upload into the app. If you take it thru the app and have a problem with the app you could lose all your fish.

 

When you pre-fish, make sure the area you're fishing has cell coverage. If you took the pics thru your app and no cell coverage your pics could have a problem. Maybe not but no need for extra stress. If you took pics thru your phone like normal you can add them at a later time when you get into good coverage.

 

I find if I leash the fish and let him breathe while I'm getting everything ready and dip my board in the water it relaxes them a bit and they don't flop so much. Also, if you angle your board nose down ever so slightly they close their mouth and keep it closed better. If you have a newer Ketch board this is no big deal. If you still have the flimsier original Hawg Trough some trails won't let you do that because they bend so easy and it makes it look like you're trying to cheat and get an extra 1/4". Remember your board is out in the sun and gets hot. So when you take a fish out of water and lay him on a fying pan, he's gonna flop.

 

I have found out the hard way (and still get lazy with this) if you're in an area and no fish, pack up and move. Another thing if when the tournament is over there is a common ramp everyone has to meet at and sign out at a certain time. DON'T underestimate your pack up time and possible traffic. Nothing worse than stressing and speeding worried about getting DQ'd. I've only had one tourney that I came close and I made it but it was stressful. Even if you're not in the money you don't want to lose your AOY points with a DQ. Another thing I self admittedly get lazy on is I fish with 8 rods. I rig them beforehand on what I think is gonna work. If it's not working, re-tie new lures. I get lazy sometimes with that and try to force feed them what I want to fish with. LOL!

 

Bring snacks and PLENTY of water.

 

Most all states that have bass have a month long tournament that's a lot less stress and helps you get your bearings on pics and measuring, etc.