Tag Archives: Tournaments

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!

IMG_1312
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.

Angler Combat

7 Angler Combat Protips

The new Angler Combat regional structure begins today with three geographic divisions – North, South and the Big 3 (CA, TX, FL). Angler Combat is an online bass fishing tournament with categories for Land, Kayak and Boat fishing. If you haven’t competed in Angler Combat (AC) yet or are just Angler-Combat-Logo-Horizontal-Outer-Glowgetting started, there are a few things to know to ensure you get the most out of the online bass fishing tournament. If you aren’t familiar with AC, take a moment to read this previous article and this one as well.

  1.  Be sure to download the iAngler Tournament App before you get out on the water. It’s important your phone is updated to the most recent operating system and test that you can successfully log in.
  2. Tournaments run monthly from the 1st-28th and each month has a unique monthly identifier. Look up this identifier and have it with you before you are out fishing…sometimes your mobile coverage can be spotty and you’ll need this identifier to submit a fish. If you are having poor reception, you can upload your fish after getting off the water. Photos are geotagged and you can mark the catch location in the app.
  3. When photographing your fish, make sure to understand some specific AC requirements. No fish clips, stringers or bungies are allowed to secure the fish. With AC, the fish must be fIMG_1564acing left with lip touching end of the board, but the mouth may be open.
  4. To prep your hawg trough for use in AC (or any kayak based tournament) use a Sharpie to darken all of the lines and to draw a line along the base of the left lip plate to improve visibility.
  5. Understand the prize payouts – with AC, the more the merrier. The prize payouts grow the more participants there are, so encourage friends to enter! There must be 10 entries per division for any prizes to be awarded. These new rules starting this month have a direct correlation between the number of entrants and the payout structure.
  6. When reviewing the AC Leaderboards, select the Length button at the top of the standings to see each submitted fish by length for each day. Here, you an click the image icon to see full-size images of each fish. You can also click on the Summary button to see the scoring summary for every angler for each day.
  7. After submitting your catch with the iAngler Tournament app, check back later to make sure your photos were accepted and approved. DO NOT delete your photos from your phone until you get verification of acceptance in case you need to resubmit.

Participating in AC is a good way to stay sharp when not in tournaments and can be a fun way to share your catches and compete with others in your region when the fishing heats up later in the year. You could win prizes from some of the AC partners:  Jackson Kayak, Orion Coolers, WASPcam, Boonedox USA, Manley Rods and YakGear. Go sign up and give it a try!

 

Reviews

Angler Combat Drops Big News & Future Plans

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Angler Combat is generating a lot of buzz in the kayak fishing community and is making big moves to continue their invasion of the digital fishing tournament world. If you are an angler who fishes from the bank, a kayak, or from a bass boat, I encourage you to take a look at Angler Combat. Get in now while it’s early because I predict it will explode in popularity in 2016 and beyond. They are now announcing some big changes which will help with this growth…keep reading for their big news!

OK, so what is Angler Combat?
Angler Combat is a catch, photo and release (CPR) oriented digital tournament where participants compete within a broad geography against other anglers. What makes Angler Combat unique is it includes three competitive divisions – Land, Kayak and Boat. No anglercombatother tournament series provides anglers from almost anywhere an ability to compete, no matter how they choose to fish. Competitors are ranked by their top five fish submitted via the iAngler Tournament app, using a unique identifier code for each 28 day tournament period. For a $10 monthly entry fee, division winners can walk away with a significant cash prize or some other high end prizes. To get an idea about the experience, read this round-table discussion about Angler Combat from some Arkansas Kayak Angler members who have been actively competing.

For a tournament series which only began in November of 2015, Angler Combat has already gained a lot of awareness and notoriety thanks to word of mouth and social media. Their officials report that they have averaged more than 100 competitors in each of the first three months, which is already ahead of their initial expectations (especially in these winter months). There has been some interesting data coming in from the first three monthly tournaments. One of the most surprising stats is that on average, anglers fishing from the bank are out-catching those in kayaks and boats. It’s reported that competitors in the “Land” category are submitting better five fish totals on average. At first this is very surprising, but they say this is likely because bank fishermen can fish more, often daily while on a lunch break or before or after work. The more you fish, the more you catch to turn in. So far the prize packages have been impressive, thanks to some of their key sponsors: Jackson Kayak, Orion Coolers, WASPcam, Boonedox USA, Manley Rods and YakGear, among others.

Big News #1 – NEW Division Structure Begins in February
The crew at Angler Combat has been listening to their participants and analyzing the data. With a bit of number crunching they have determined there is a competitive imbalance between the fishing new map ACqualities in some of the states currently in the South division. Beginning this February, Florida, Texas and California will be broken out into their own division call the Big “3” division. This may lower the participation total in the short term in each division but will be a great improvement overall and I believe will help them grow more quickly with a level playing field. This should address the top concern about Angler Combat in our AKA roundtable discussion and review of Angler Combat.

Big News #2 – Marketing Blitz and Tournament Expansion Plans
This is only the beginning of the growth as they plan to begin to seriously market the tournament series, including a new television commercial recently filmed in Florida. Anyone who competes in Angler Combat should be pleased as they increase their TV and online marketing, which will improve the participation numbers and in turn will drive up prize values. In addition to a ramped up marketing push, there are also plans in the works for expanded contests and prizes, and eventually the launch of Striper and Redfish online tournaments.

Big News #3 – Television Series
The most intriguing and exciting news to me about the future of Angler Combat is their plan to launch a competition-style television show which would air on a well-known fishing network. This show is said to feature fishing pros competing against amateurs who are winners in Angler Combat monthly tournaments – showing their battles for supremacy. Pros against talented locals in Land, Kayak and Boat showdowns should be very entertaining. We should hear a lot more about this television project in the coming months. Stay tuned.

These are lots of positive moves which will improve or enhance an already fun online tournament which could be the next big thing. My advice? Get started now, sign up and compete. Get in early and you will be an Angler Combat veteran by the time it goes main stream.

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.

Reviews, Uncategorized

Lake Atkins Lives Up To The Hype

It’s not often that reality matches up with the hype that comes with fishing destinations – but Lake Atkins delivered for me. I’d heard a lot of talk about this up and coming “Big Bass” lake stocked with Lake Atkins Arkansas signFlorida strain bass in Arkansas, but had not fished there until just recently – and it was impressive.

Lake Atkins was recently the site of the 2015 Arkansas Kayak Anglers State Championship, bringing together qualifiers from local trails for a year end event. The lake is made up of expansive flats which vary from 5 to 12 feet deep, with a small deep end being 20-25 feet around the dam. Standing timber, both visible and submerged, litter the lake from end to end which provides underwater structure everywhere. In addition, much of the shoreline is ringed by cypress trees and small coves and cuts, providing excellent cover for bass. Good luck finding ditches or humps or ledges, because there aren’t many and they are subtle.

Big Bass Lake Atkins Arkansas Largemouth
A 24.5″ monster from Atkins.

Pre-fishing was on a Saturday and Atkins was littered with a kayak fishing fleet determined to unlock the lake’s secrets. Almost all those fishing that day were catching good fish, including 7.6lb and 8lb hogs brought in by yak anglers. I did well that day with a Bandit crankbait and Yum plastics. A cold front came in on tournament day, changing the fishing dynamic and resulting in a tougher bite. Even so, one kayak angler hauled in a massive 24.5″ monster that didn’t even look real. What also impressed me was that good fish were being caught on multiple types of baits, which isn’t always the case on a tough, post-front day.

This lake is definitely worth more visits. Use caution and watch for stumps just below the surface when navigating the lake! Many kayaks were high centered and impaled through scuppers and more than one pedal-kayak was damaged from striking submerged timber. If you need a break, order a good burger or grab some tackle at Lucky Landing, located on the south side of the lake.

Reviews

Lake Fork Marina and Motel Review

In November 2015 I was fortunate to join more than 90 other top kayak bass fishing anglers at Lake Fork, Texas, for the Tournament of Champions. The Lake Fork Marina and Motel sLake Fork Marina & Motelerved as the home base and take-off point for the tournament and was a great spot to host.

First of all, anyone who has been to Lake Fork knows it is not close to any town of any size, so having lodging, tackle shop and restaurant all in one spot right on the lake was very convenient. The staff in the tackle shop and motel check-in were great and easy to work with and very flexible on check-in and check-out options. The tackle shop at Lake Fork Marina & Motel was well-stocked with many of the baits and other supplies you could need.

Honestly, the motel rooms were not great, but were cheap, clean, and convenient to the lake – which is the most important attribute. I really liked that you could park and back your yak up right to your door for extra security. There are camp sites and really nice lodges for rent if you have a group. A highlight of the Lake Fork Marina motel is Tiffany’s Restaurant which was a great place to eat and you must try the pie. (Verona Italian Cafe is also nearby and a can’t miss option)  All in all I definitely recommend this as a fishing HQ for a trip to Lake Fork.

Events

Kayak Bass Series 2016 Schedule

In 2016, the Kayak Bass Series circuit will compete in two divisions, North and South, and the dates and locations are set for events. The KBS is billed as the closest thing to the FLW for kayak bass fishing and the 2016 events should be the best yet. The North division consists of events at Dale Hollow Lake, Table Rock Lake, Burnsville Lake and Lake Erie. The South division will include St. John’s River, Ross Barnett Reservoir, Lake Fork Texas and Lake Hartwell. READ MORE about the 2016 KBS Event Schedule.