The KBF 100 Challenge at Toledo Bend

[bksnaz]

Anyone on here going / attending?
https://www.kayakbassfishing.com/eve...-championship/

[Ring King]

Yep! I'll be fishing the 100 as well as the Open. Just booked our house last night. It's going to be a long 36 hour drive and I'm very thankful to have my wife as a copilot once again! I'm not sure if she has decided to fish the Open or whether she is just going to go and judge the events and help run things for Richard. I'm sure she'll spend a few days on the water with me pre-fishing at least. We are waiting to hear back from Dwayne Wally as to whether or not he's going to meet us down there or not. It'll be good to see everyone again. The list of invites reads like a who's who in the kayak bass fishing world!

[bksnaz]

Yep - not looking forward to this drive and yours is way worse than mine from AZ. Have you fished Toledo before? This will be my first time there.

[Ring King]

Nope, never been to Toledo Bend before. I've fished Rayburn and Fork a few times when I lived down in New Orleans. I'm hoping that it fishes similarly. I grew up fishing boat tourneys all over the South East so hopefully I can adapt quickly. We will be getting to town on the 30th and will have that week to prefish.

[bksnaz]

Well good luck. We are not getting into town until the last minute - hoping we can prefish a little come Thursday.

[Ring King]

Good luck to you as well! If nothing else I'll see you at the check in!

[Pilgrim]

How far do you go from the starting point and does everyone start from the same place? Seems like there would be very few places to fish with 100 kayaks and only being able to go a short distance.

[bksnaz]

I think you can start / fish from pretty much anywhere on the lake. However everyone has to meet back at tourney headquarters at end of day, so some location strategy is in play.

[Ring King]

bksnaz is correct. This is an open launch event. There is a preset start time for "Lines in". You can get on the water as early as you like from whichever launch you choose within the boundaries of the tournament (for this event its basically the entirety of Toledo Bend). However, you cant begin your fishing until the start time rolls around. Then there is an end time for fishing (3pm I believe) and we must all meet back at the tournament headquarters, Cypress Bend State Park, prior to the 4pm check in time. So, depending on how far away you chose to drive in order to fish you may have to cut your fishing short in order to make it back to check in on time.

As far as distance that we travel goes it just depends on the person. I routinely cover about 14 miles round trip on bigger waters. So essentially I can fish around 7 miles from whichever launch I choose to use. I've done more and I've done less depending on what I find that day on the water.

[bksnaz]

My report. This was my first time ever traveling to Toledo Bend or a big tournament for that matter. I traveled with 2 others friends from AZ. That lake is huge, you can fit some of our lakes into the creek arms. We pre-fished day before tourney but the area sucked and only managed a few tiny bass. As a group we all decided to gamble and try a different spot day1 of tourney. I got my five but it was tough and the limit was small. That put me in 37th out of 102 anglers after D1. Day 2 we gambled again and hit a totally new area on the Texas side more south. I was game to go anywhere as I figured I was totally out of contention and my plan was to swing for the fences on day 2 with giant worms and deep cranks. If I could just catch one giant and win the big bass pot, then the trip is paid for. This area actually had grass and it seem promising. I picked out a deeper channel between some shallow areas on the map and headed to it. Passing over I noticed a few arches. Paddled past and pulled out the 8xd. On the second cast at that area I get a huge bite on the deep crank. As this beauty breaks the surface there is a twin that came all the way up with her. Land this fat girl but her tail was a little short so she only went 22.25” but still I am thinking 5 of these and I can actually win this thing. I hook another fish from that spot but somehow I let it get airborne and bounced it off the front of the yak and it came off. It looked about 17”. I wasn’t too corcerned as I knew there was another giant down there. Cast after cast, nothing. Tried slowing down and working that area with big worms and a few other things, still nothing. About 2 hours later the sonar lights up like spaghetti again and I think it is game time. Over the next 30 minutes I would say 6 of my casts actually made it to that strike zone area, the rest got hung up in submerged timber before reaching the intended zone. It was very frustrating. They were there and ready I just could not execute. Eventually I decided to go shallow with smaller cranks and some finesse tactics to at least get 4 more for the limit. I lost another fish and eventually landed my 2nd fish. But that was it for me. We had to leave that area an hour early as there was no cell signal to upload our fish. I dropped to 47th with that 2 fish output. That first big girl that morning almost won me 3rd place in the big bass contest, but another contestant with the same size won the tiebreaker pushing me to 4th(1 out of the money). My top 20 goal was not completed, but we learned some lessons that should help us all in March when we will travel together again to Kentucky for the NC.
https://tourneyx.com/app/lib/submiss...1509781048.jpg

[Royjulius]

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Sounds like you still had a great time and you still bested half the field. I enjoy reading these yak tourney results. I'm glad these things are taking off.

Oh and ...sweet fish! That's a monster up this way.

[bksnaz]

It was a good time and great for experience. Can’t wait til March for Kentucky lake. Will definitely try and get more pre-Fishing in for that one.