Fishing from a kayak is much more challenging than a bass boat, obviously. Instead of a weigh-in, anglers take the first picture at safe light with a ruler, their number and their kayak. All other digital pictures show the length of the fish species. If you can imagine holding the fish down on a ruler with your number and not flipping the kayak over. However, today's fishing kayaks are designed to be stable and with some boats, you can even stand up in them.
For most of these tournaments, it is a big event as people come from everywhere and usually camp for the weekend. We held a festival type atmosphere as Pitman Creek Paddlers, Canoe KY and Hank Gevedon set up their vendor booths. End Zone Pizza supplied dinner on Friday night and Fatman's BBQ hosted their awesome smoked pork and beef on Saturday. The Down River Country Band from Pulaski Co played music both nights. Burnside Island State Park sponsored their facilities. We had an incredible amount of sponsors for this event. Lake Cumberland Outdoors, Confluence, Bending Branches paddles, NRS, YakDaddy, Hampton Inn, Water Girls at Play, Sinking Valley Winery, Off the Beaten Track, Curves, YakAttack, Cumberland Cycles, Boat N Stuff, Tradepark Storage, Coyote Sunglasses, The Sulton Of Slime, Ocean Minded, The Diver's Den and The Energy Guy. The guys from Yakangler.com made this event a big success. Proceeds from the tournament went to REEL Recovery, men dealing with all forms of cancer. They provided a $275.00 fly rod package. Raffle tickets were $10.00 each. The winner of that went to Pamela Funk. No one more deserving that her as her husband passed away from cancer two years. The grand winner, Brian Sloan won the Wilderness Systems Tarpon120 kayak valued at $900.00.
Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone that showed up. Thank you to all the sponsors! I will be organizing another kayak fishing tournament either the last weekend in April or first weekend in May. KFD...Kentucky Fishing Derby! For more information, go to Yakangler.com or call Suzy at 606-383-3061.
First pic is Men's first place and grand prize winner - Brian Sloan with his 11 yr old daughter that is the winner in the youth division.
The second pic is Women's first place, Melinda Stein holding the $100- YakAttack prize.
Third pic is Pamela Funk, winner of Reel Recovery's fly rod.
