Yak-A-Bass April 19th tiki lagoon

Thanks Ring King for the reply. Sundays are always bad days for me to travel to far, work starts early for me. Is that Bryan in the beige pajamas and the backpack . Just kidding with ya. I wish for bass fishing we could get off this length of fish thing and weight the buggers its the only way to get fair results. ( My opinion from years of tournament fishing ) The same length fish could weight 1/2 a pound or more difference for a fish coming in at 21.5 in.

Man I'm so bummed I missed this invite.  I was actually ON my Kayak, spectating the Tracy bass tournament. I'm game for next time.

The next event was just announced on our Facebook page for anyone interested.  It will be out of Sugar Barge on Franks Tract May 16th.  Meet up by 6:30am and be on the water by 7am.  Everyone should be back at the launch by 3pm for the "weigh in" to compare fish and chat about the day.  We like to go over techniques that were effective as well as discussing the techniques in detail for those less familiar with bass fishing.

Yep, that's HobieBlue in his beige pajamas.  He was discussing stick bait wacky rigging techniques and holding a little casting contest.

I agree with the weights varying a good bit per length of fish.  I've spent my whole life fishing bass tournaments from boats and have seen it over and over.  CPR is the most accepted tournament format for kayaks though.  It's much easier to get a pic of a fish on a bump board than it is to get a pic that shows the scales reading and the entire fish in a single picture especially while sitting in a yak.  Not to mention the differences in accuracy of scales.  Some scales measure in pounds and ounces while other scales measure in tenths of a pound.  The bump boards just alleviate a lot of those head aches that would come about with weight tournaments.  Unless of course you mandated livewells like the belly boat tournaments do.  Live weigh ins would be awesome and make things more exciting for spectators but not every kayak is capable of carrying a livewell cable of keeping fish alive all day.  You'd also run into permitting issues with live weigh in events.

It was early, I didn't have time to change...

Hope you can come out to the next event Kevin.  Meanwhile, get out there and catch a few nice ones.

HB

Thanks Ring King for the reply. Sundays are always bad days for me to travel to far, work starts early for me. Is that Bryan in the beige pajamas and the backpack . Just kidding with ya. I wish for bass fishing we could get off this length of fish thing and weight the buggers its the only way to get fair results. ( My opinion from years of tournament fishing ) The same length fish could weight 1/2 a pound or more difference for a fish coming in at 21.5 in.

I agree with you about weighing the fish.  Not to mention how many fish I've had flip off the board trying to take pictures.  Scale differences are a big problem if you try to release the fish right away and livewells on yaks are just heavy to tote around especially for those of us not on Hobie power  .  I actually thought of an idea recently that may work great for kayaks.  I am going to attach culling balls (something like this http://www.amazon.com/Ardent-SmartCull-Professional-Culling-System/dp/B001H54MEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429892268&sr=8-1&keywords=culling+balls) to fixed points along a trolley system attached to the side of the kayak.  Slip the culling balls on the trolley, hook the fish to the culling ball and toss back in the water.  I figure the drag should be minimal and since its on the trolley, I will just send the fish towards the back of the yak to get out of the way of paddle strokes.  I haven't tried it yet, but if it works well I will post it up.  Can anyone think of any drawbacks?  I don't see it as any less effective than a livewell at keeping fish alive.  I just don't want to tow around the extra weight all day.

I think an issue would be summertime events where surface temps would possibly kill a fish and also the possibility of drowning fish during long paddle stretches.  Many times I'm racing to make it back to the launch at the end of an event.  Covering two miles or so at 4mph while dragging fish on a stringer can kill a fish.

I think dragging a fish on a tether would kill it.  Like Matt said, a bump board has been the historically best way to measure tournament in a kayak for catch, and release purposes. 

Happy fishing to ya.

HB