This year’s National Championships was held on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes and Tributaries. The timing was a bit rough for me being the week after the World Cup and USA National Championships for Freestyle Kayaking so training was not ideal. Not only that, on October 1 I realized I hadn’t registered yet and Called Chad- “Hey is registration closed?” He said- try tomorrow, you can register for Nationals. Whew!! I did and thought I missed it!
Russ Snyders and Cody Milton were fishing the lakes for 2 weeks straight leading up to the event where I got in four days of training. In three days I was able to find 3.5 days of fishing that would not produce any respectable results and 1/2 day that showed promise. I worked my way from the main lakes upstream in the rivers/creeks until I found fish. The reality is that I found fish on every body of water I fished. My goal was to find water that was not good for plastic kayaks with keels and deeper draft (by a lot). The Apex Tyr needs about 1/2” of water to float and that made all of the difference. My best 1/2 day saw an 18” largemouth on a buzz bait, and some 16”-17” smallmouth on a swim jig or buzz bait.
Competition day- this was the basic idea:
- 3 Rods- Strike King Swinging Sugar Buzz bait, on a Cashion icon 7’3” m/h rod, Lew’s Pro Ti, Strike King 50lb braid.
- Strike King Pro Grade Swim Jig, 3/8 oz, white with white Rage Menace with 7’ Jig/worm Kayak series Cashion rod, and 15lb strike king fluorocarbon.
- Final rod had the “Bitsy Bug” with Rage Jr. Chunk, on 7’3” M/H Cashion Icon and 15lb fluorocarbon.
Tackle box included extra buzz bait, 3 extra swim jigs, 2 finesse jigs, jig heads for rage swimmer and some 3/0 hooks for Caffeine shad or weightless Ocho.
Soft plastics bag had extra trailers for jigs and 2 bags of Ocho worms (6”) and 2 bags of Caffeine Shad (KVD Magic, and Ghost Shad) and Rage Swimmers 3.25”.
I also brought a dry bag for my coat, gloves, and hat as the mornings were 26 degrees where I was fishing, my Gatorade, and snickers bar.
No electronics, no electric motors, no pedal drives. All of those would hinder my fishing not help it on this trip. This was as simple and pure as it gets, the way I like it best.
On day 1 I planned to put in at a bridge and fish downstream and then attain back upstream to the bridge and be there by 12pm and then move. My morning was pretty strong and I was on a mission to take the lead and stay there. My first fish was a 17” smallmouth at 6:39- 9 minutes into the comp- and my first cast was at 6:35. My second fish was a few minutes later at 6:40 something and a 17.5”. My fish got smaller after that and one disappeared and others got shorter. I didn’t understand what was going on but a 16” fish’s tail wasn’t against the board properly and was denied and three of them had open mouths. My second place turned into a 5th place at the end of the day due to penalties. I saw Russ Snyder’s photos and saw how his fingers are well pressed into the fish and he is really forcing the fish into the front of the board to assure 100% mouth closed. I learned my lesson there! After I got my limit at 9am or so I was just trying to catch bigger fish and was not checking email, etc. from Fishing Chaos. When I got off the water at 2:30 and started reviewing my fish I was in a panic as my numbers didn’t add up! I was sure I had 87” of fish, but instead I had 82.5”. Eventually I figured out where my penalties were coming from but it was too late to get another photo of the fish.
On Day 2 I chose to run 8+ miles one way down a river and not attain back up. It was another 26 degree morning and my micro guides were getting iced up and lures were stuck. I had to dip my rod in the warmer water to melt the ice on every cast. Keeping my hands warm enough to fish was not easy. The buzz bait bite was gone almost 100% and nothing seemed to want to bite until noon. I was committed to moving baits and was throwing the swim jig non-stop pulling a few fish, but not keeping pace with the other top guys. I managed some small fish and stayed in top 10 and then the sun changed things up for me. The smallmouth got easy to find in the harsh sun, bluebird skies, zero wind. They were in ambush positions, around wood, in the shadows. They started biting way better than when they were roaming around in the early light. I only needed to identify the right cover and right cast as they didn’t want to go far to eat my jig. Throwing past them and pulling my jig in front of them I could get them to bite 50% of the time. I managed to catch 5 fish over 18” in the last two hours of day 2 putting me at 93”. Culling all 5 fish between noon and 2:30 was the highlight of the tournament for me. I found the big ones and I caught the big ones. Nothing huge, but 19.25”, 18.75” etc.. sweet fish that fought hard and drove me up the leaderboard quick, both provided good positive feedback that I was doing something right. I was at the Top 100 awards thing, thinking we were doing awards for challenge series and trail series. It was scheduled for Friday night the next day. Dinner at the convention center at Paris Landing was a good BBQ with lots of good people. Team Mexico was there and having a great time and fishing well and I got to hang with them some. We got our top 100 Ketch boards and I got a good night sleep, more or less. I finished in second place after 2 days, meaning I was second in both the Trail and Challenge series and had a good shot at 1st place on Friday (if Russ struggled) and a great shot at 2nd place in the overall National Championships.
Day 3; Warmer, than, goodness- whew! In 2 days the weather would warm up 30 degrees. 2 days earlier it was 30 degrees warmer. We got hit with a crazy cold front on day 1 and 2 and Day 3 was only 10 degrees better. 36 degrees at 6am instead of 26. I under dressed and was colder than before, duh! Except for my hands and no more ice!
I opted to run the same water a second time and sure enough I struggled to find as many or as big of fish. I did catch an 18” smallmouth early in a section I didn’t get a bite on day 2. However, the area that I got 5 over 18” (3 miles stretch), I didn’t get much. I finished with 84” my slowest day of the 3 in terms of landing fish, but did break off a solid 19 and an 18”. I wish I was throwing 17 lb line at that moment. One was when I didn’t retie soon enough and one was a log issue.
Skipping my jig into tight spots, fast moving, standing and floating downstream, controlling my both with my rod tip or lure, and clear water fishing made this a dream tournament from a fun factor. The morning weather was rough, but it warmed up plenty and the sun was awesome. I normally like cloudy weather for smallmouth, but the sun gave me the confidence to know where the fish where likely hiding to eat, because they were not swimming in the sun and eating at the same time from what I found.
One of the practice Days I was floating down a shallow shoal, standing up, and fishing and two guys were dragging their boats upstream and saw my going down 1” of water and not touching a rock. “Hey what is that boat?” One of them yelled, knowing that he would be stuck on the bottom if he were were I was. “Tyr” by Apex, I yelled back with a smile. I love it when, with no words, somebody can see the performance in action, and wish their boat did that. Fun stuff.
Meanwhile- Awards were that night for Trail and Challenge Series. I was sitting front and center. In third place, and in second place “Cody Milton” and in first Russ…. “WHAT THE????” I was in shock. I obviously got second. Ok, now trail series… same thing!!! Chad went to the back room to pick something out and I ran after him from the front row. “Dude, how was I not second in both events?” Chad Said- “EJ, I told you that you could still register for Nationals, but trail and challenge were both due by the last day of September, you missed it by a day. Whoa… OK, that was a $14,000 mistake!
Yes, it was a bummer to realize that I lost $14,000 in prize money by being 1 day late for registration. My wife, Kristine, reminded me to focus on what I did win, the $7,000 for nationals and that I should be proud of my fishing first, and prize money is second. I married very well! My pity party didn’t last long and I don’t think anyone saw me in a bad mood. Mistakes happen when you are trying to do as much as I am, I guess.
Saturday we did the National Championships Awards and “yippie”, my name was called this time for 2nd place!
Till next tournament- World Championships in Portugal in 2 weeks!
🙂
EJ