220 Anglers Bass Fishing Kayak Fishing Tourney

[PerryC]

We went, we saw, and we fished...

If you live on the Left Coast, or the West Coast as it's proper name is and are into kayak fishing, you have heard of The Plastic Navy. Each year, they hold some kayak fishing tournaments and they have gotten larger year by year.

This year, I decided to join the tourney trail and fish the 6 stop circuit to see what kind of mayhem I could do on some bass. All stops are saltwater and some of the competition is pretty stiff especially with some of the San Diego guys who fish weekly, not to mention guides who fish in it, manufacturer teams who are fishing it, kayak shops who have pro staff teams who are fishing in it and some pretty damn good anglers to boot.

This is my story and I'm sticking to it:

My friend Robert who help on the site here decided to fish in it also, so I went sown to SD after work on Friday night for some eats and last minute strategy. We hit up a Pho restaurant by him for the usual killer Vietnamese chow before doing some last minute bass supply shopping. We didn't find the blades we were looking for, so we decided to head to the homestead and use what we already had. The next morning, we arrived at the sign-in spot at 5:30 thinking we would beat alot of the anglers there because the captains meeting was at 6:30am. We were greeted by anglers already there, already locked and loaded out the wazoo. Can you say oooooppps?

We unloaded the kayaks and proceeded to get rigged up for a full day on the water. At the captains meeting before launch, we learned there was 220 anglers participating in the event, which made it the largest in the country to date .

A distance shot of the Captains Meeting:



A closer shot of the meeting. Drew, who put everything together is the guy with the bullhorn:



Considering there were over 200 kayaks sharing a public launch ramp on a Saturday in San Diego, it went pretty smooth. Either because we were well behaved, or there was just too many of us for power boaters to give us problems like some of them do when were out fishing by ourselves.

Here is a shot of about a third of the kayaks before launch. It was the first bunch lined up ready to rock and roll.



Most of the kayakers did really good on the ramp also. Most of them had the one-two minute launch down pat. Here is a tail end of the first group heading out.



And how was the fishing you may be asking? Well, it was both good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone I talked to caught a few dozen fishing if they had experience saltwater bass fishing. The bad news is alot were under the 13 inch tournament size limit, so alot didn't count. All areas of the bay seemed to be producing fish to some extent, and the locals who fish weekly knew where the larger unit were hiding and went and found them.

The winners were a family team and they won big fish and first place, for about 4.5K in cash and prizes. Alot of the local favorites DNW'd or weighed one legal fish for the day. I managed to eek out the 38th spot with two fish for 3.6lbs and my friend Robert got 75th with 1.65 lbs. Considering I haven't competed in the bay for over 5 years, I'm very happy with how the day went.

Robert and myself easily caught over 2 dozen fish each, but most needed to grow up some more before they would count. We found a few larger units that liked our offerings and we were on the board Next time I'll try for photos after the weigh boat weighs the fish for me. I know I'm not going to long arm a 2lb Spottie and photograph it while it's trying to climb up my arm before it's weighed and in the books.

I also had a chance to see some faces I haven't had the chance to see in a long time like Swampchicken, Defjack, SteveC, Amish Ed, Iceman, Eagle Eye, Hobie Tom, JimS, Cucamonga Keith, Hook1, Yani, Mr. Greenjeans, Bwana, Barb and a few others and the TPN Crew. It was an awesome event put on by some awesome folks. I can't wait to go down there again for some more fishing and competition

On a side note, I got my first look at some glass/composite Sit-On-Top kayaks by Current Designs. Here is my friend Scott Shaw in his, looking happy as a clam.



A very nice day on the water

PerryC.