Collin L

Hello all, I just wanted to share that we are a little less than a month out from the first in-person river kayak (smallmouth bass) tournament I have put together for the year. Some of you may have seen the online tournaments Eric S has shared on the forums and this is similar to that but takes place over the course of a single day. On Sunday, April 5th we'll set off to catch the best 5 smallmouth that we can, documenting them by photo/measuring board to ensure a quick catch and release. The complete details and signup process can be found HERE. The basic details are as follows: Entry Fee: $49 --- Includes $5 TourneyX fee, $2 admin/judge fee*, $1.61 Paypal fee *used to convince someone to sit around looking at fish pictures all day Optional $10 big bass pot (100% payout) Northern Boundary: Ogden Ave (Route 34), Naperville, IL Southern Boundary: Channahon State Park, Channahon, IL Format: Best 5 bass (length), 12 inch minimum Eligible Fish Pictures: All fish pictures must be loaded into your TourneyX.com dashboard to be scored for this event. Each fish must be a minimum of 12 inches in length. Each fish must be measured on a Hawg Trough or Ketch Products bump board with your tournament identifier in view. EXIF (location) data must be attached to each image file submitted for verification that the fish was caught in eligible waters. Due to the energetic nature of river Smallmouth Bass, PICTURES MAY BE SUBMITTED WITH AN OPEN MOUTH WITHOUT PENALTY. John S asked a great question about wading during these tournaments. The rules of these tournaments are based on KBF (Kayak Bass Fishing) standards, and per their rules, an angler MAY wade as long as a kayak was used to get to a given location and if the kayak is within view of the angler. Someone else asked if a canoe can be used and this is a perfectly acceptable watercraft as well. There cannot be any motor, electric or gas, in any case, however. In my opinion, one of the beauties of river kayak fishing is the the simplicity and the lack of an environmental footprint. As such, human powered craft is the only way for this tournament series. Hope to see a few of you join us for some great pre-spawn fishing. Collin

I plan on having a whole series planned and scheduled for spring and summer 2020. I'll keep the online competitions going but plan to add some live tournaments on rivers in/around the Chicago area. Suggestions/stretches are more than welcome!

Hey all, This is Collin and I'm commenting as a guest while my account is validated. First, thanks for the interest of those who participated. I hope each time we do these virtual tournaments our numbers grow. I just wanted to add some details, as Eric did, about my catches. My biggest two fish at 20" were indeed caught up north as Eric guessed. I was lucky enough to find this stream in MN this summer and fish it twice this season. While I'd rather not post its name online, I'd offer it up in exchange for some good water in WI. As for the fish, both were caught on a 3/8 oz Terminator Jig in Spring Craw color. As a matter of fact, my two biggest fish on my last trip also came on this same jig. However, at the beginning of Sept MN saw a wicked cold front and water temps plummeted to 60 degrees. Fishing was tough on day 1 of my two day trip and I could only pull fish out from deep wood structure. It took me a few hours to figure this out. The golden colored 20 incher was caught in 8 feet in slow moving water and hit so light I didn't feel it at all until I began to reel. The second 20 came on Sunday midday when I was passing under a bridge beneath a highway. It wasn't your normal toss to pilings type of catch as the bridge was more of a long dark tunnel. While floating through I was letting my jig sink along the pitch-black walls and a big one absolutely hammered it to my surprise. I managed to land it without breaking the rest of my poles while slamming into the walls. At the other end of a bridge another angler was trying to figure out how to catch smallies that were annihilating beetles dropping down to the surface from nearby grass/trees. It was a cool sight to see them swimming from 4-5 feet in clear water to the surface for these bugs. So I went to the other side of the river, got out, and waded to the edge of the bridge. gave the ol' jig a couple tosses and on the third cast watched a 19.5" pick it up. The rest is history. Not far down from there bass were still coming to the surface for the beetles so I tied on a weightless, small brown hellgrammite and tossed it at a hunting pack that had just swallowed a beetle. Two twitches later I had a 19.25" in the boat. Prior to this trip I had been fishing the Kankakee and Dupage. While I caught some good fish on the Kankakee, the other 19.5" came from the Dupage under a bridge. I tossed a weightless wacky rig shad/flake colored senko at the head of a logjam located at the front of a bridge piling and let it float by. I felt a thump and set the hook on a fish that had my 6' foot rod nearly doubled over. Those last two days of the tournament I covered 22 miles of river and basically fished from sunrise to sunset on Saturday. I caught good numbers and a few big smallmouth and pike on a spinnerbait and even lost some giants on a whopper plopper 75 though the topwater bite was very slow. It been nice to see that we all have our mishaps and missed fish. Again, I want to say great job to everyone. With me being the director, I want to be as transparent and fair as possible, especially in a tournament that comes down to the wire. As always, if you have questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to pass them on to me. Collin aka Riverman