07/21/2026
TOURNAMENT RECAP!!
Last weekend I fished the Midwest Kayak Bass Club and the Wisconsin Kayak Bass Nation Qualifier on pools 7,8, and 9. This was the tournament I've been looking forward to for a long time. After a win last year, and a disappointing tournament because of mistakes, I was chomping at the bit!!
Due to the off limits rules, and weather, I only pre fished Friday. While the prefishing wasn't crazy, I put an 18+ in the yak, and snapped off on one bigger....I know because it came out of the water several times within a few feet of me trying to shake the lure. I decided to fish a different area, but what I saw gave me confidence if the water was similar. After hanging out with Brandon Neuzil and getting my identifier codes ready, it was time for a few hours sleep before game day!
Saturday morning, less than a mile into my 25 minute drive, I had to change a flat on my Kayak trailer. I thought i was getting all my bad juju out of the way. 3 miles later ran over a monster raccoon! All said and done, I was getting into my kayak within a minute of launch/line in time. 1st few casts, nothing...odd, but go with game plan. When I crossed the channel and got to the 1st cut I couldn't believe what was there...the whole cut was blocked by a stack of logs from the high water coming in!!! Debris everywhere, current ripping. I love current but not debris of this magnitude!! Worked my way down leapfrogging a tree floating to my "spot"...boat sitting there. They let me fish my rock pile, 2 hits...I bailed.
Working back across, I stumbled in the middle of a small feeding frenzy. 1st fish, stryper. 2nd, good smallie!! Because I didn't Want to take the time to submit with craziness going on, I kept fishing. Put a 17+ in, lost 2 more bigs. When things slowed down I submitted only to learn i had the wrong ID code. I always have 2...1st I grabbed had stuff on case, so I grabbed the other. The 2nd had wrong ID code. I wrote NSEA instead of NSE4. In all of my kayak competition I've never made this mistake. I guess til now!!
Very jilted, and scrambling, I caught a few more fish feeding. My water looked great, so I stuck there and hammered it. Only put 3 more on the board that actually counted. Looking back, I'm not sure why I couldn't scrounge more fish with the water conditions. But it was one of those just not meant to be days. Out of 39 in the MKBC, I ended 27th. In the qualifier with 25, I think I was 18th. The top 2 qualified for the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship.
Congrats to Brandon on a solid finish on the river. A huge congrats to Elvis Lee on his big win finally on the river!!! And also congrats to his absolute HAMMER of a son Oliver on his 4th place finish!!!
My tail is tucked from this event but I think I'm going to fish the MKBC event on the Fox and Wolf in Wisconsin on the 1st. Then will be the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series tournament on Fox and Wolf August 22nd and 23rd. I used up a ton of bad luck this time and looking for a big rebound!!!
By the way...anybody interested in another fund raiser??? Thinking of raising some money for our furry friends...comment if interested...more details coming!
As always, thanks for the support and kind words!! More coming soon!!
