If you are a bass fisherman and you see the event schedule with a tournament in January or February in Florida you are stoked! Heading to the warmest part of the continental USA during the coldest part of winter to get a reprieve is the main thing, but Florida is a specific type of fishing that you don’t get elsewhere and it is simply big fun. Shallow water fishing, big bass, finicky bass, spawning bass, alligators, heavy cover (weeds), and a variety of patterns to choose from make it a challenge and puzzle to solve that can throw anyone for a loop. I have always fished the KBF Trail Series events, but with KBF changing direction and doing only the Challenge Series this year, I am still hungry for in-person, 2 day events to compare to the field. In this event, there were 224 anglers and Florida brought out many of the best, and yes, a local won this one. It is very hard to compete against the top anglers that live on the lakes we are fishing, but it can be done, of course. I brought my “Waterfowl Camo” Apex Tyr and rigged it with a Torqeedo and a Power Pole Micro. The days of the trending “pedal kayaks are the best” are finally over as people realize that having a paddle kayak for shallow water, lightweight mobility, and using an electric motor if you want to be mobile, fast, and hands-free is way better than the pedal. The TYR is by far the most nimble and lightest weight fishing kayak on the water and the fastest and most maneuverable with a Torqeedo. It also burns the least amount of battery getting from point A to B. 
I trained on Toho, Arbuckle, and Lake Jackson for this event and focused on Lake Jackson after my wife, Kristine, said, might as well fish the lake with you name on it. In the end, you can win on any lake, but there is a lake that is setting up better than the rest on tournament day. Jackson, in the end, wasn’t that lake. Marion had the most top-10 performances, including the win. I had a spot on Toho that I really wanted to win with, but I never got a single bite as the fish were not there yet. I thought about forcing it and they may have moved in for tournament day, but I bailed and went where I was getting a lot of fish and some good ones in practice, which was Jackson. My biggest fish in practice was on Arbuckle however, and i think I could have done well there as well.
The first day of the tournament I had a limit early, but only about 75 inches with nothing over 16″ long. I was repeatedly catching 14-15″ inch fish and not upgrading much. It was cloudy but pretty calm but then the wind hit pretty hard and I busted out a 1 ounce Strike King Heavy Cover Spinner bait in Bluegill color and started fishing the lilly pads where the bass were staging up for the spawn and I had a couple of big bites in practice. BAM! Within 5 casts a GIANT nail it and luckily I was fishing with Strike King 50 lb Braid as this fish was angry and fighting hard, getting into the lillys but I horsed it out and into my kayak pretty quickly. A 10″ upgrade with a single fish. A couple of years ago I was $6000 from KBF for having the biggest bass of the entire season and it was 23.75″. Catching this 24″er I figured I would have Big Bass.
What a fun bass to catch- my first big one of the day.
I only had a couple of hours and chucked that spinner bait around the entire time. It is a good workout compared to the other lures I was fishing. I got an 18.5″ and a 17.5″ on the spinner bait as well. I wish I switched earlier. I ended up with 91.5″ on day 1 and it put me in 24th place. Apparently the field was crushing it with 104″ by the leader and 10 people over 100″.
On Day 2 we had the most epic sunrise combined with a crisp, clean, hard line front moving in that created the most impressive visual. I was blown away. I took this panorama photo.
The angler in the photo is Matthew from New York. I took a photo of him with that front as a background and asked him to take this photo of me as I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment with a perfect set-up for an epic photo. Here is the result.
Calm, sunrise, front Clouds smooth as silk, epic.
You can also see my Apex set-up in this photo well.
I had another super fun day on the water, but more of the same in terms of 14-15″ fish most of the time. I started punching through lilly pads that had hyacinths choked up in them as I found some fish that way in practice and they were all pretty good ones. My first punching fish was 15″, but my second one was this one, which really helped. It was 20″ long and the bite was solid and a fun hookset.
I couldn’t back that fish up which I caught at 9:30am with more big ones. I ended up with only 83.5″ on Day 2 and dropped to 34th place out of the 224 anglers. Still a solid finish up near the top, but I didn’t put the winning pattern on the winning lake together this trip. So much fun, a lot of work, not much sleep- Love it. I wish I could do it all over again. When do we fish next? Dale Hollow Lake near my house in Tennessee! Smallmouth, here we come! Fired up!
Meanwhile- stay tuned- I created a new accessory for kayak fishing that is a GAME CHANGER. I used it this trip and it is unbelievable. I will unveil it very soon and it will be available in March.
Some more photos:
Calm, sunrise, front Clouds smooth as silk, epic.
Getting off the beaten path in Florida is always fun.
🙂
EJ