OKBT CLASSIC!!!! AND SEASON WRAP-UP

Got it done! This year's main goal was qualifying for the okbt Classic, and what a year it was. It was a crazy ride and there were definitely times where I thought it wasn't going to work out. Right off the bat at nippissing starting my day in one area only to load everything back into the car and hour and a half into the day and drive to a completely different location just to catch a limit and claw my way to a 44th place finish. After that I had hoped that, that would be my lowest finish of the year the second stop was St.clair but while I was fishing and focusing solely on that I neglected my phone and the fact that I was contacted by the official scorer who was trying to let me know my location was showing up on the American side and we'll out of bounds. By the time I found out it was to late to make any big ground back and I thought my season was done, as it was looking like I was going to finish up in 96th place and tank any hopes of a classic this season. But after talking with John and showing him my saved route from the day of fishing he added my previously declined fish to my score catapulting me back into 24th and pretty much saving my season. That should be all the dramatic parts of the season out of the way early right, WRONG! Heading into the lake Erie long point bay event I was actually able to prefish for one day, this was the only day I prefished all season, and it turned out to be a waste. In prefishing I focused all my efforts of marinas as I figured it was better to have a weather safe plan in place then risk it in to big water and not be able to find anything should the weather pick up like it can do in an instant on erie. Prefishing was good but a day or two before the event we all recieved news that as a result of certain situations arising all marinas would be off limits for the event, and because I didn't check anything outside of the marina I was going blind yet again. But I have fished Erie alot and relied on that experience in other areas to get me through. It wasn't looking good early on and I was falling off in the standings as the day went on. Had it not been for the stability of my wilderness systems recon 120 allowing me to stay out longer than most in the wind and big waves it would have ended that way, but it worked out and I was able to speed crank my way to a top ten and first ever pay check. Next up was easy street..? Right..? Georgian bay an area I have alot of confidence in last year this was my best finish 7th place although that was the Perry sound area and this year was port severn but that only gave me more confidence as it is water that I have fished more and had great success on over the years. With the three lead up events to this I figured that if I was able to top ten here I should be able to fish comfortably going into the final event and I didn't see a reason to doubt I could pull it off. Fishing was good right off the bat and I was off and running with a decent limit, I was just missing those kicker fish that the bay is known for producing to really solidify a great finish. While out off of a rock shoal I hooked into a decent 18+ inch smallie and completely botched the net job several times and wasted so much time that it eventually broke off right beside my kayak I could have lipped it, or hand scooped it 2 or 3 times but for whatever reason I didn't and I lost that fish. Fast forward and after adding a couple small upgrades I was still in search of a kicker fish or two to slide into that top ten. I hooked into one of if not the biggest bass I have ever hooked, again on light line and this time I am in weeds, and as fish do it dogged down into them. For a period of 5+ seconds I can see this fish in its entirety, easily over 20inches and it's maybe 2.5-3 feet down and stuck in weeds that won't let go. I could have done any number of things at this point. I can see it's hooked good so I can let off the tension and hope it swims down and out of the weeds, I also probably could have netted it as it was right there, but instead I decided that I would pull it up and out of the weeds knowing full well I was using 6lb test. Safe to say that fish snapped me off and never made it into the kayak. Losing those 2 fish dropped me from a likely top 5 or better day all the way down to 21st and feeling uneasy about the classic yet again. Enter crunch time the final event of the scheduled season charleston lake, a two day event and one that I am nervous for, to say the least. I was sitting in 6th with 702 points for aoy but knowing that it is best 4/5 made me feel like I needed a top 20 finished here to feel confident with making the classic. As day one came and went I was sitting in a decent spot I figured if I could get 5 on the board in day two I should make my goal of top 20 and cruise into the classic comfortably. Given that alot of big fish were being caught and I hadn't broken the 17 inch mark I opted to change out launches and move to the other end of the lake in search of new water and better fish. The weather kicked up the temps plummeted, I figured with the temperature and wind it would have moved fish out off the banks and onto the first break line or deeper flat. So I was pretty glued to my dropshot trying to cover water and drop when I mark a fish or set up in high percentage areas and fan cast from there. But I was never able to stay stationary and while I was catching alot of fish with the dropshot I struggled all day to get scoreable fish. As the day dwindled away I was left 1 fish shy of my limit and hanging in suspense as a result, I finished way off my intended mark in 37th place leaving the door open in my mind for doubt in regards to the classic. I attended the awards and as John called out the names I worried more and more that all these mishaps would amount to just out of the classic. Losing key fish at throughout the year not filling my limit on the last day of the last tournament, getting photo submission penalties because I was rushing the photo, losing fish because I was taking to long to get the photo. All these things are running through my head right up until I hear my name, and then just like that it's like they never happened at all, well except that bass on georgian bay, but that was more so just for my own personal reasoning. I did it... I made the Classic!

Wheel of death

I don't have much experience with it but after this year I can tell you I'm not a fan. As we had to narrow the lake and launch down for the classic, the method used is a knockout wheel. It keeps spinning and stopping until only one choice remains. This year's choices were Sparrow, Catchacoma, Chandos, Chemong, lake Scugog, Gbay Parry Sound, Paudash, sturgeon, 6 mile, Canal, Balsam. My obvious preference being gbay. But after the second spin that was not an option, which left my preference being pretty much anything except chemong, Balsam, or sturgeon. Me and the kawartha lakes don't really have a great relationship, as I have fished multiple tournaments on those lakes over the two other years fishing select okbt events and I have yet to fill my limit and most of the time only scoring 1 or 2 small fish for an entire day. So to say I was unamused when the spinning stopped and the lake left standing was chemong would be an understatement. Nonetheless it's fishing and anything can happen, so why not run it back one more time. Me vs the kawartha lakes vs 24 great anglers , but mainly me vs the kawartha lakes.

CLASSIC!!!

The day is here and it's go time, well kind of, it's 2am and I'm still at home 3.5hrs away in port colborne along the shores of lake Erie. My fiancé doesn't normally attend these events and as a result my kids never do either which is fine because it cuts the cost down and leaves me to my own choices for a couple days. But they agreed to tag along this time, so we load up the kids and the giant puppy we now possess and hit the road. Running a little late but as on time as you can get with so many moving parts. A while later we arrive at the launch site, selwyn conservation area boat ramp. Upon getting my kayak down from my car roof and loading it up I go to attach my 360 light into the port I have for it only to find out that one of the pins somehow snapped, and it now does not work. So I had to watch as the rest of the field took off and got set up while I looked up what the legal light time was for that day. After waiting it out I hit the water and quickly got to the opposite shoreline and set up in an area no one was in. After all the luck I had with the frog at mississippi it was really hard to not throw it, so that is exactly what I did. Wouldn't you know it my 5th or 6th cast a nice boil but the frog never got eaten. The follow up casts only prove to waste time as nothing comes from it. I start making my way up a large channel staying opposite of another competitor. I wanted the frog bite to be going, so I was trying to force it, every time I saw a patch of reeds or a couple pads or a sloppy area I'd fire it in and act shocked that I wasn't catch fish and getting bit every cast. It wasn't until I made my way through the channel and started fishing around some docks with a small Smeltinator swimbait head and a 3 inch rapala crush city mayor swimbait that I hooked up for the first time. A whooping 5inch largemouth.i was getting bites but everything was under the 12" minimum. It was frustrating to say the least I know guys are going to find a way to catch good fish, I need to get away from these "minnows" and find some sharks. So I left that shallow bay and went out off of a point, this point came out onto a decent sized rock flat and then dropped off by 6 or 7 into about 10ft feet fairly quickly so I set up to drift and cast on top of the flat and come off of it by 25 30 feet. It paid off and I landed my first scoreable fish. A 14" largemouth got the skunk of the yak. Given what I had been catching and how the leader board was looking that seemed like a decent fish. I made that same drift a couple more times but didn't manage any other scorable fish from it, so I kept moving. I began crossing the lake hitting a large point on the way with no luck I also would cast when I would see some hard bottom on my side imagining just to see is transition lines were holding anything and again nothing. I left that point and continued on to the far shore there were some bays reeds and docks from what I could make out, seemed like as good of and area as any and I could get back to throwing the frog around. I was also working the small swimbait along the weed edges and in-between the more sparce sections I would come across. Although the frog didn't produce, the swimbait continued and when I got to the far shore I was casting just into an offshore clump of reeds and it got chewed a 12.50 incher for the board. It's nothing to write home about but this seems to be a grinder of an event so every scoreable fish matters. I continue down the weededge without anything else to add and work my way into the weeds along the shore, and yep, I start throwing the frog yet again, I want this bite to fire up so bad. I do get a strike and I try to set but again no such luck on the hook up. I start to make my way out of the weeds back to that offshore clump so that I can work the back side of it and in doing so I am rewarded again on the swimbait with another small 12" largemouth for the board, and with that fish submitted I have now caught and entered more fish than I did in the combined two days of fishing we had on the tri lakes last year. I fish around little more again a bunch of unders but nothing else for the board. I have two options in mind at this point I can test my luck and look for deep water and try dropshotting for some miracle smallies or I can double down on the largie game and try to put together a small limit and upgrade from there. I opt for the latter and as I leave this little bay I start to work the shoreline down with, you guessed it 11.75 and unders biting at will. I drift for quite a while and the size doesn't improve, so I figure deeper worked on my biggest fish so far, so I'll punch out a little further off the weed edge and see what happens. I'm sitting in about 9-10 feet now with small groups of or individual weeds showing up at random on the graph. So I figure why not toss around a megabass vision oneten plus 1 the depth is good for it, I can work it as fast or as slow as I want and try for piece something together off of how that goes. As seems to be the case whenever a lure change happens fairly quickly it starts getting bit, a scappy largemouth measuring 11.99" i just cant get it to measure 12". No other bites come in the 30-40 minutes throwing the jerkbait after that. I might actually get a limit together it's a little after 12:30 pm and lines out by 3pm and I only need 2 more. I'm coving water quickly at this point using that small swimbait along any weed edge it can be used on and still keep the frog bite honest when the area looks fitting but still nothing happing worth noting. As I pass around that big point from earlier I switch gears and go bigger the wind is now working so that I am being pushed the way I intend to go I just need to steer and move in and out of the weeds other then that the pace is good and steady. In typical "force it" fashion I go back to the frog once I get around more reeds and pads. I do have one good blowup that tightens up but somehow when I set into it my frog came back at me like I owed it money or something without a fish attached to it. I keep drifting down the channel and at some point for some reason I decide to pick up the flippin rig I have set up. Unfortunately this isn't my normal flippin set up as that still has a frog attached to it. But it should get me through the last hour and a half or so. A 7'6" med heavy 20lb braid is not ideal for flippin into reeds, pads, and slop but it's going to have to work. Looking back I could have and should have swapped the frog off, but it's too late now. I quickly hook up to an under but hey it's something positive, and get back at it a couple minutes later I hook up and it's a decent 14.25" largie one more now and I can close out my limit and can hopefully get on track to make a couple upgrades. This was the bite I should have been chasing all day but I just don't have the confidence in flipping to make it a mainstay when I need bites but at this point I had looked at pretty much every other option. The next bite I got felt good and I cracked back on it, the only issue is remember that 20lb braid I mentioned before... yeah snap right away. I got a hook in that fish though and it does suck not ever seeing it on the board. After quickly retieing I'm back in the game and continue this flipping deal, now if flipping is where I lose confidence, where I gain confidence if when my fiancé calls or one of my kids get her to call me. I don't know why but all season it has been happening, I have caught so many of my scored fish while on a video call with them it can't just be a coincidence at this point. And low and behold magic strikes again. After being told to wave at the go pro I was running a live stream on because my daughter wants me to say hello I turn back around and the very next flip after she hangs up 12.25 " to fill my limit. It's really such a crazy thing and it's all on one continuous live video, but it's crazier than that. As 2 pm hits she calls again to ask if I submitted that fish and where I'm at as the standings have gone dark now and last she saw I was at 65" but didn't know if that fish had been entered yet we talk for a couple minutes and within less then two minutes after she hangs up. It strikes again, this time it's a good upgrade a 16" largemouth to boot out my 12" bumping me up to 69". Three fish in less then 2 hours plus 2 breaks, and 2 unders I think I like flipping a little more. The clock dwindled down and I call it at 2:50pm to get across the lake to the ramp, I was able to get 1 more fish flippin in cover but it didn't help me. All in all, it was a grinder right across the board but for once we left the kawarthas on top, not in tournament standings but in pretty much every other way. I got to drive home with my family recounting the days events and I beat the lakes that I have resented for so long I finally punch my limit and I was good with that. When the dust settled and the standings came back on I checked to see how it shook out with that late upgrade. I finished in 14th out of 25 great anglers. I bought my first and only kayak three seasons ago and it's still what I'm in today, so while the vessel hasn't changed much, adding a pedal drive and some storage and organizational components. Looking back I have personally grown so much as an angler it seems fitting that on a waterbody I despise, in a tournament I didn't think I'd ever fish, I fill my limit and upgrade my way to a respectable finish, thanks to something I consider a weakness in my game. Three years ago it wouldn't have happened that way. There is something to be said for the way tournament fishing pushes us forward and helps grow and mold better anglers, and these kayak tournaments, against the skilled and driven anglers, on such diverse bodies of water take it just that much further and push that much harder. While fishing is an individual pursuit it is composed of a variety of groups coming together in collaboration to achieve one common goal. So I would just like to say thank you to my fellow anglers. The conversations shared at the awards or through various social platforms, about techniques, tricks, and just fishing in general are constantly pushing me to try new things and learn or improve on skills, and I hope I have been able to return the favor for you aswell. Thank you to the tournament organizers and officials. Not enough can be said to express the gratitude myself and I'm sure all the other competing anglers have for all the effort and work that goes into not only the execution of the events but all the work behind the scenes. Whether that is forming the schedule, gathering sponsors and managing everything associated with that, the award set ups, the quick responses and open availability for questions and concerns, the hours spent sorting fish submissions for 100+ anglers,you go over and beyond, and it does not go unnoticed. To the great companies and people who sponsor these events, thank you so much. I was fortunate enough this year to win several draw prizes from fishing rods, to apparel, tackle bags, and soft plastics. I say everytime but if you are looking for items to support you in your outdoors pursuits, check out any of the companies on the okbt banner you won't be disappointed. Lastly thank you to my friends and family, having the support from you means more to me than you know. Being gone from home for multiple weekends a month, doesn't make life with three kids easy. The added expenses in today's economy only complicate things further, but regardless of what comes up you're support for this passion I have is what really makes all of this possible. Thank you, a hundred times over thank all of you, and I look forward to what next season has in store.

As always, thank you to the great anglers that come out to these events. It's always such a blast and an enjoyable experience being around such like minded and passionate anglers. Thank you to the people who put in all the work to organize and run these events. It is because of people like you that this sport continues to grow and get better and bigger every year. And lastly, thank you to the sponsors that support the OKBT and Ontario Kayak Bass Nation. We are so fortunate to have the best companies in the sport fishing world supporting us and helping us maximize our time on the water, making us more proficient anglers. Being a leader of innovation and quality in their respective product areas, you can be assured that if they are on the OKBT Banner or website, they are top tier.