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Massey’s BCKFC Fish Pics Tournament

December 12, 2013
Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Kayak Fishing, Retail, Saltwater, Tournaments, Warmwater
1 Comment

 

You may have noticed throughout the year that some of my fish pictures had a little card identifying my participation in an eight month long catch-photo-release tournament:

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The tournament, put on by Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club and Massey’s Outfitters, was free for club members to participate in and ran from March 1st through October 31st. It consisted of seven categories over two divisions:

  • Conventional Rod and Reel Division

    • Speckled Trout
    • Redfish
    • Flounder
    • Large Mouth Bass

  • Fly Rod Division

    • Speckled Trout
    • Redfish
    • Large Mouth Bass

What made this CPR tournament a little different was it’s point structure. Normally overall aggregate length wins in a slam tournament like this, but this one was different because each category was awarded a fixed amount of points. The goal was then to get the most points by trying to catch the longest fish in each category. This made each species just as important as the last and protected the tournament from being dominated by one really long catch. Each division would win a kayak so no division held more value over the other, both fly and conventional divisions would be competitive.

This tournament was a lot of fun to fish because it was so multifaceted. It lasted eight months, so my interest in kayak fishing was at an all time high during that time. There was potential in every trip to upgrade your standing and work your way to the top. It also highlighted species that I normally don’t focus on and really helped me to become a better angler for them. I made specific trips to fish for largemouth and intentionally fished for flounder – these things don’t normally happen and it was a lot of fun.

I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, getting 4th overall on the conventional side and 5th in the fly, but I was lucky enough to enter a fish in every category and being the only angler to do so the tournament organizers felt I deserved a special prize – a brand new Bending Branches Angler Pro paddle!

BCKFCawards(Photo credit: Brendan Bayard)

I also took home a $100 check for 4th, not bad for a free tournament! A big thanks to the fine folks at Massey’s for their generosity. The rest of the results are below:

Conventional Aggregate
1st Clayton Shilling
2nd Steve Lessard
3rd Mark Eubanks
4th Ben Roussel
5th Steve Neece

Fly Aggregate
1st Jonathan Craft
2nd Kevin Andry
3rd Glen Cormier

Youth Aggregate
Rory Craft
Big Trout
Donnie Elliot
Big Red
Lance Burgos
Big Flounder
Michael Drenski
Big Bass
Don Hallet

It took a number of trips to earn the 4th place finish as I was upgrading fish throughout the year, but I didn’t catch anything memorable until the IFA championship. That’s when I was able to get a 31″ red and a 22.5″ trout.

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I was pretty disappointed that 31″ was the biggest red I could get because early in the year I had a few reds over 40″! At 22.5″ though, the trout may have been the biggest I’ve ever caught, so really stoked to have that fish to use for two different tournaments – the IFA championship and the Massey’s CPR tourney.

My flounder was caught while we were filming for Sportsman’s TV in June. It went 17″ and flopped in the water shortly after taking it’s picture, which was fortunate because I haven’t caught a bigger flounder since. Maybe I’m cursed after catching two monsters at Fall N Tide last year.

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The bass was an even bigger disappointment than the red. I caught it during a daytrip up to the Kisatchie National Forest. I thought I had a good shot at catching a nice bass at one of the lakes up that way, but all I could muster was this little guy, who went just a hair over 13″.

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Pretty embarrassing, but rules state they had to be caught on public water and I felt like this was the best place to get a monster and it didn’t pan out. I’ll have to spend a little more time on bass next year and hopefully find an even better spot.

What’s more embarrassing is that this was all it took to get 4th. You’d think that in a club with well over 300 members and the tournament being free this event would be a no-brainer for everyone, but it seemed to be the same core group of 20-30 competing with each other. Hopefully year two of the Massey’s Fish Pics tournament will be bigger and better and even more folks will compete – to me, if you have a kayak and fish in Louisiana, it’s worth the cost of a BCKFC membership ($25 last time I checked) to participate.

Yakin’ for Reds with Sportsman TV

August 7, 2013
Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Multimedia, Saltwater, Video
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Back in June I had the privilege of filming an episode of Sportsman TV with host Greg Hackney that was focused on kayak fishing. Sportsman TV is a fishing show that airs locally on Cox Sports Television. I got the invite from Blake Gill of Massey’s Outfitters in New Orleans, one of our local Jackson Kayak dealers, who was generous enough to provide kayaks for both Greg and his cameraman/producer/jack-of-all-trades Jared Serigne. I’ve really enjoyed the new format the show has taken this year so helping them out was a no-brainer. Besides Blake and myself, Louisiana Sportsman’s kayak fishing guru Chris Holmes was also on hand.

Due to the presence of Tropical Storm Andrea in the Gulf, we decided the night before to head somewhere we could take cover from the relentless wind conditions we were experiencing.  As we got the launch that morning it was pretty evident that wind wasn’t going to be a factor, in fact it turned out to be a pretty awesome day. The only negative, for me at least, were the high tidal conditions we were experiencing.

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The water was high but we still had a really good day catching redfish. They were holding extremely tight to the grass. Greg picked up on that early on and wore ’em out. I think Greg really enjoyed his time in the kayak. It was his first time in one, but I’m pretty sure he outfished us all.

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I started the day off throwing topwater. I had a few throwback trout explode on my spook. One was right at the boat which was pretty cool to catch on camera. I picked up a couple reds later on and even ended up with a decent flounder to complete a slam.

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I’ve been holding on this report until the episode aired, which ended up being last week. I think Jared did an incredible job editing it all together, the episode came out really good. Anyway, check it out, let me know what y’all think:

Fishing Bayou St. John

May 13, 2013
Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Kayak Fishing, Kayaking, Saltwater, Scouting, Tournaments, Warmwater
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There was no way I was missing a group 30th birthday party for some friends in New Orleans on Friday night. Ended up parlaying that trip into a weekend affair ending with Mother’s Day festivities with Amanda’s family Sunday afternoon.

Got to fish Saturday, heading to Bayou St. John for a small get together dubbed Redfish for Research. The goal was to try and catch redfish in the bayou to be turned into UNO’s Nekton Research Lab for further study. Fishing in the morning concluded with a demo day by Massey’s in the afternoon further up the bayou.

The day started off a little rough with some strong storms moving through the area. It kept folks off the water for about an hour after sunrise, but rains held off the rest of the day. I was mainly targeting bass with hopes of catching a decent one to turn into Massey’s CPR tourney. I did catch a few dinks, but nothing had any size. I didn’t land any redfish either, but neither did anyone else. We know there are redfish in the bayou, just not in great numbers. The flow of water from Lake Pontchartrain is obstructed by a few structures. Hopefully that will improve when a dam on the waterway is removed.

Water clarity in the bayou was excellent and it seemed to me like a healthy fishery. There was lots of bait and I was getting a ton of hits on the popper from bass and bream. I ended up catching a bass to turn in for both the fly and the conventional tackle category. I really enjoyed paddling Bayou St. John. BSJ and the adjacent City Park are quite the urban oases, wish we had something like that in Baton Rouge, though I’ve really enjoyed our neighborhood ponds since living here.

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The demo day by Massey’s was held after, though participation was pretty poor due to the weather that morning. Most of the guys that fished Redfish for Research hung around after and shot the breeze.

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After the demo day I headed out to some drainage canals to scout for carp. Still haven’t found a good place for them in Baton Rouge, but I’ve seen some good reports from some folks in the New Orleans area for them, so I wanted to give it a shot while I was down here. I didn’t end up seeing any until the third canal I tried, and even then I really only had a few legitimate shots. None were caught, I didn’t even get an eat, but from what I understand that’s part of the carp fishing process. Gar were everywhere and I did land one just to feel something on the end of the line.

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A pretty good Mother’s Day weekend despite no one catching redfish in Bayou St. John. If you do catch a redfish in the bayou and wish to turn it in for research the contact info for Patrick Smith is below, he is our contact for the research being done on the bayou:

Patrick Smith
Graduate Student
Nekton Research Lab
Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences
University of New Orleans
2000 Lakeshore Dr.
New Orleans, LA 70148
patricksmith111@gmail.com