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Spotlight: YUM Pulse, KBF National Championship, PFDs, RTT Recaps

This week read about a hot new swimbait, PFD selection, Razoryak Tournament Trail and KBF recaps:

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Christie’s spinnerbait setup with Pulse trailers.

Many Bassmaster Classic fans watched YUM sponsored angler Jason Christie take an early commanding lead on Grand Lake, only to lose out on the final day to a monster bag from Edwin Evers. For the first three days Christie was lighting it up, leading field with an ability to put fish in the boat. One of the secrets of the week was that Christie was using a brand-new prototype YUM Pulse swimbait as a trailer on his spinnerbaits. This new swimbait was a key in helping create the right disturbance in the murky water because of it’s ribbed design. Although Christie used it as a trailer, it is primarily designed for use rigged as a swimbait on a jig-head or hook. These swimbaits were not available prior to the Classic and are now hitting stores.

Chris Payne at Kayak Fishing Blog has a really good article about choosing a PFD (personal flotation device) for kayak fishing. He discusses the different types and uses and makes some recommendations. I use a MTI Solaris when fishing and like it because of the high placement of the padding on the back so it doesn’t interfere with my kayak seat. Wearing your PFD is very important and most tournament trails require it in the rules. Invest in a comfortable one, the better it feels, the more likely you are to keep it on!

The best Kayak Anglers in the country met at Kentucky Lake in March for the Kayak Bass Fishing National Championship. I had qualified but had to miss the event and it sounds like I missed out on an awesome time. For those interested, here’s a recap of the winners. Congratulations to all who qualified and competed.

The Arkansas based Razoryak Tournament Trail continues for 2016 with more great events. Arkansas Kayak Anglers held their Beaver Lake Road Runner and had 70 kayak fishermen hit the water on a blustery day. Dwain Batey took first place with 82.5″ followed by Benny Williams and Craig Wood. My small limit placed me at 15 for the event. Read the tournament recap here.  Western Arkansas Kayak Anglers held their second event of the season at Charleston Lake and the cold really turned the fish off. Cody Skelton took the top spot with 53.5″ and big bass with 19″.  Visit the RTT Angler of the Year standings to keep up with the points race for 2016.

 

razoryak tournament trail

AKA Beaver Lake and WAKA Charleston Lake Tournament Previews

Next up on the AKA and WAKA tournament series are Beaver Lake and Lake Charleston on Saturday, April 2nd. Both are the second event of the season for each circuit and will be important to anglers trying to move u in the AOY standings.

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Beaver Lake is the largest body of water in NW Arkansas, but not known as a “Big Bass” lake.

Last year’s spring tournament on Beaver Lake was later in the season and the lake was warmed up and fairly clear. This time around anglers will need to manage the conditions brought on by rotating warming and cooling trends and a body of water that is back down to normal levels but much of the lake is still dirty from the recent draw-down. Beaver Lake is a 28,000+ reservoir lake which can provide a good bite one day and no bites the next.

Fish are being caught on Beaver despite the spring roller coaster. Dock talk has been saying smallmouth have moved up from Rocky Branch down to Indian Creek and are being caught in good numbers. Mid-lake bass are being caught in the stained water in familiar areas of Prairie Creek, Esculapia and Monte Ne. On the river end where the water is darker, some anglers are having success. A good limit will be needed to win this event!

Registration for the RTT-NWA Beaver Lake event is Saturday, April 2, with registration beginning at 5:00 a.m. and captains meeting at 5:50 a.m. at Academy Sports in Fayetteville. From there anglers can drive and put in anywhere on Beaver Lake. It’s going to be a cold morning, so bundle up.

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Charleston Lake should be primed for a big day.

Charleston Lake is the site of the second WAKA event of the season and there will be a giant bass caught at this small municipal lake. I’ve fished this body of water only once and can’t wait to get out there in the future. Just this year I’ve been hearing dock talk of multiple 9+ pound bass being pulled from the water.

It’s a very shallow lake with a few key contour features and a lot of vegetation in the form of buckbrush lining the banks. The ramp is near the only real hard structure on the lake, a short rip rap dam on the north side, with the rest of the lake spreading into four creek fed flat areas. During a break in the action you can catch a good view of Potato Hill. Wind can be a major factor on this lake, there just isn’t anything to provide relief. Registration for the WAKA – Charleston Lake event will begin at 5:15 with the captains meeting at 6:10.  If you catch a giant bass with a Bone Spook in its mouth, please retrieve that lure for me.

razoryak tournament trail

Spotlight: RTT Competition Recaps

Fishing has begun across the Razoryak Tournament Trail for 2016 and so far it’s been very competitive, with some familiar and some new names at the top of the standings for early events. BoldBluegill

In NW Arkansas, the Arkansas Kayak Anglers kicked off their season on Swepco Lake on an incredibly blustery day. Nathan Bohannon took 1st place and Jason Klingman walked away with big bass. I was one of several anglers who didn’t spend the full day on the water due to the wind and finished 16th out of 61 anglers. My catches came on Yum plastics. For more info, read the tournament recap here.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was there to cover the Swepco Lake event and wrote up a great article about kayak fishing. This was great local coverage of the sport and our members they interviewed represented us well.

Western Arkansas Kayak Anglers held their kickoff event on my nemesis lake, Lake Fort Smith. It was a cold, dark and rainy day with a very tough bite – producing almost no limits. Lloyd Mize took 1st, Christa Hibbs 2nd, Benny Williams Sr. 3rd, and Brandon Ward took big bass. My love/hate relationship with Lake Fort Smith continues as I scratched out a 13th place finish out of 31 anglers, catching my fish on a Bandit squarebill.

Kayak Bass Anglers of Central Arkansas has had two events, with Jeff Otts winning the first event, and Terry Brown taking the second.  For Twin Lakes Kayak Anglers, Eli Powers took the top spot in their first event of the year. Visit the Razoryak Tournament Trail standings page for up to date rankings on all four trails.

 

razoryak tournament trail

Lake Fort Smith WAKA Preview

The first Western Arkansas Kayak Anglers tournament of 2016 will be held at a beautiful, but infamous body of water located south of the Bobby Hopper tunnel on I-49. Lake Fort Smith is a 1,400 acre fishery LakeFSMsurrounded by the scenic Boston Mountains and is one of the most beautiful lakes in Arkansas. This mountain lake can be quite clear, but like last spring, the lake is currently dirty and muddy – which some anglers will love and some will loathe.

Lake Fort Smith (which is not located in Fort Smith, Arkansas) is probably only infamous in my mind because of the two nightmarish tournaments I spent there last year. This lake is the site of my personal best both in fishing tackle broken off and rod and reel combos lost. Otherwise, it’s great.

The tournament is on Saturday, March 12, and will start from the boat ramp in the state park area.  Captain’s meeting is at 5:30 a.m. and will take off around 6:00 a.m., with scorecards due in the bucket by 2:00 p.m. Read more about it on the WAKA 2016 Opener at Lake Fort Smith Facebook page. Lake Fort Smith has the best ramp, parking and setup area of any of the tournaments I’ve been to – it’s really a nice place to hold an event.

The lake itself is fairly new creation, a combo of old Lake Fort Smith and Lake Shepherd Springs which re-opened in 2008. High winds out of the southwest or northeast can make it difficult, but the orientation of the lake can blunt some winds from the northwest or southeast. The most prominent attributes are the dam to the far southwest end and the main feeder creek far to the northeast. The ramp, park and the marina are situated in a large cove on the northern side of the lake. This lake has a lot of great scenes like waterfalls, small creeks, coves and bluffs. Do be wary crossing the lake in a kayak, there are boats that will motor through, so be sure to have your visibility flag deployed.

Last year’s two tournaments out there were held after the spawn period, so the lake should be totally different this time around. Dock talk says the water is already stained, with lots of rain on the way this week. The great thing about this lake is that if you want to fish bluffs, go ahead. Like a big flat or rip rap areas? Go ahead. And if you like standing and fallen timber, Lake Fort Smith has it. Basically, you can fish how you want to thanks to the variety of options.

Razoryak Tournament Trail events are a fun way to meet other kayak anglers, improve your fishing skills and to enjoy friendly competition. To participate in this WAKA event, no advance registration is required; you can show up with your entry fee, hawg trough and kayak on tournament day. Be sure to review all of the information on the 2016 WAKA Opener event page and check out the WAKA-RTT Schedule for info on future events.

razoryak tournament trail

SWEPCO Lake RTT Tournament Preview

The first event of the 2016 Arkansas Kayak Anglers season is coming soon to SWEPCO Lake and expectations high for a large turnout for this tournament season kick-off. SWEPCO Lake (also known as Lake Flint Creek) is a 530-acre body of water located near Gentry, Arkansas, and is a popular fishery in the winter months thanks to the power plant which keeps the lake temperature higher than other Northwest Arkansas area lakes. This first stop on the RTT-NWA Razoryak Tournament Trail will be held on Sunday, March 6 – visit the RTT-NWA SWEPCO tournament page on Facebook for more information, including start time and entry fee. Last year’s tournament (2015) featured 72 human powered watercraft on a tough post-front bluebird sky day…but the top anglers still turned in some solid limits. Tim Hotchkin turned in 80” for the day to take 1st, with Kyle Fields and Josh Sherrill taking 2nd and 3rd. Will that be enough to win it in 2016? We will soon find out!

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Mike Iaconelli found some good bass on his recent trip to Swepco Lake.

SWEPCO has a good population of healthy Florida strain largemouth bass which thrive year-round thanks to the warm water of this power plant lake. During the winter months SWEPCO is a magnet for bass fishermen from all directions who bring their boats and kayaks to this little lake in hopes of some good fishing in the cold weather. Unfortunately, this also means that the fish are highly pressured and by the end of winter they have seen a thousand artificial lures from hundreds of fishermen. This year, water temps are down from their normal totals due to pauses in power generation and local dock talk is saying this has slowed the bite compared to last season.

Fishing SWEPCO for most anglers usually involves a few key areas of the lake, depending on which strategy you wish to employ. The Swepcomapsouthern end of the lake is lined by a long rip-rap covered dam. The northern end of the lake splits into two large arms, one to the northwest and one to the northeast where the power plant discharge is located – generally providing the warmest water area. From the south to the north end there are many small pockets and coves branching off of the main lake. Wind is almost always a factor on SWEPCO in the late winter and early spring. The lake runs at an angle that allows winds out of the south and southwest to scream up the lake on some days making it tough to hold a kayak position on points or to get back to the ramp by paddling after a long day of fishing.

Razoryak Tournament Trail events are a fun way to meet other kayak anglers, improve your fishing skills and to enjoy friendly competition on the water. To participate in the event, no advance registration is required; you can show up with your entry fee, hawg trough, camera and kayak on tournament day. Be sure to review all of the information on the NWA-RTT SWEPCO event page and check out the NWA-RTT Schedule for info on future events.

Fishing Tips

Top Six Kayak Fishing Tournament Lessons from 2015

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My first year competing in kayak bass fishing tournament trails was a real learning experience. Each and every event taught me something new – and sometimes the lessons were painful, but made me a better competitor and helped me accomplish a successful Razoryak Tournament Trail season. Here are some of my top kayak bass fishing tournament lessons learned from 2015:

  1. Fish security is very important. This seems obvious, but if you don’t get a quality photo on the hawg trough, you can’t count the fish. In my very first kayak bass fishing tournament on a tough day of fishing at Swepco Lake, I lost three bass off the board while taking the picture – leaving me only one to turn in on the card. It was a bad start for the AOY points race and I finished far down the rankings for this event! Some people use a clip or fish grips (as their circuit may allow) and others just have a certain technique that helps control the fish. What I learned here is I hadn’t practiced this enough going into the tourney. When getting started, this is something you should practice over and over with your hawg trough and camera when pre-fishing or fun fishing so that it is second nature on tournament day!
  2. Take care and time when taking photos. In my second kayak bass fishing tournament of the year my luck improved and I caught a very competitive limit (and kept them on the hawg trough for the pic) but in my excitement I didn’t focus enough on making sure each
    kayak bass fishing tournament fish
    This bass was caught using a Heddon Super Spook around submerged rock along the bank.

    bass had its mouth fully closed for the photo. I was in too much of a hurry and not taking the time to work a bit with the fish to get the mouth closed. I finished third in this event, but lost out on Big Bass and second place due to deductions on three of my five fish. Learning from this, I didn’t have a deduction the rest of the year.

  3. Don’t give up! You hear this all the time and read it in almost every article, but staying focused and not giving up on a bad day is difficult. During the WAKA River Run event I had scouted a location where I’d never fished and got off to an OK start, picking up a couple of largemouth bass early. Over the next several hours I didn’t get any bites and didn’t have a clue. I wanted to quit, give up, and was thinking about an early start on the long drive home. But I kept going and kept trying. With less than an hour left before tournament turn-in I caught a 16″ and 17.5″ on back to back casts and then one more a few minutes later. Caught on a wacky rig, check out Yum Dingers for some great color options) This resulted in my first win of the year and Big Bass for the tournament. If I had listened to my self-doubt and frustration then I would have missed out on a great finish. Two other times in 2015 I had similar experiences with catching an important fish in the last 30-45 minutes – don’t give up!
  4. Pay attention to the details. Another difficult lesson learned this year is not to take small details for granted. It’s not enough to pick the right bait, make the best cast and work the lure perfectly. I paid the price a few times this year for not doing some little things to help make sure I landed the bigger fish you need to win. Some things to focus on include ensuring your hooks are sharp (change them out if necessary!), check the drag settings on every reel, and take time to tie the right knot for your technique and re-tie as often as needed. On one tournament day at Lake Charleston I lost one of the biggest largemouth bass that I hooked all year when the knot broke from worn line and my drag was too tight. This could have changed a fourth place finish into a first place finish!
  5. Take an inventory before you launch.  Finding the pattern on tournament day to get bass in the kayak is a terrific feeling. Losing the lure that’s catching them, or running out of the plastic bait that’s pulling them in is an awful one. If you have a go-to confidence bait or some key lures for a particular event, be sure you have more than one in the boat. One of the things I enjoy about kayak fishing is the challenge in managing a limited amount of space and gear I can take on the water. One event this year I did a very poor job of this and it cost me when the key pattern emerged and I wasn’t prepared to take advantage.
  6. Map out your time. This is one item I figured out fairly early and it works well for me. Before a tournament starts I know exactly how long it takes me to get on my fishing location and how long it takes me to get back to turn in my card.  This allows me to maximize my time on the water casting for bass without risking missing the cutoff.  Things can happen such as a vehicle or equipment breakdown, but other times people just misjudge paddling or driving time.  This is particularly helpful in Beaver Lake style road runner events, or if you keep paddling further, clock your time. To help with this I keep a visible watch face in my kayak so I know what time it is at all times and can keep tabs on when I need to get moving.

Many of these tips are fairly basic but are all related to some personal lessons learned and I hope are helpful to kayak bass fishing tournament anglers regardless of experience level.