The long anticipated Kayak Bass Fishing National Championship is in the books for 2016. 230 anglers from 30 different states traveled to Paris, TN to fish Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley to determine the National Champion.
After bluebird skies and warm temperatures through prefishing earlier in the week, Day One weather took a crazy twist. The night before the start of the event, temperatures dropped 20 degrees, the wind switched to sustained North with gusts up to 20 knots.
Anglers who were fishing open water patterns were forced to adjust their plans and fish sheltered coves or try to stay in place on the main lake structure that had been holding fish.
The Day One task was to find two fish and their combined lengths would carry over into Day Two where anglers need three fish to make up your total five fish limit.
For Day One, 412 fish were registered amongst the 230 anglers with the top spot going into Day Two belonging to Adam Street from Tennessee with 39 inches. The top 20 places were separated by 3.5” before the start of the second day.
Day Two started with another weather change. The wind calmed down and the clouds broke early. It was still cold but not nearly as much chop on the water. Right after lunch a new cloud bank rolled in and the wind stayed steady from the North.
Submissions started pouring in shortly after the start time and were continuous through Day Two as anglers were finding limits and culling to get the best three fish to go with their previous two from the day before.
469 fish were submitted during Day Two which brought the two day tournament total for fish submitted 881 fish for the 230 anglers.
Anglers all had to submit their fish through TourneyX.com which allowed judging to happen throughout the tournament day and within 15 minutes of the final check in at 4 PM all of the fish had been scored.
When the scoring was all tallied up the crowned National Champion was Matt Ball from Ohio. Ball had a two day, five fish total of 94.00 inches. He took home $32,700 including Bonus Bucks Add Ons.
Clint Henderson was second with 93.75 inches, winning $5,800 and Adam Street rounded out the top three with 93 inches worth $4,000
The KBF National Championship paid out 23 places this year. Places four through 23 were as follows:
4. Justin Templin
5. Kevin Workman
6. Shelly Efird
7. Jim Lor
8. Tim Perkins
9. Jay Wallen
10. AJ McWhorter
11. Alan Wiedmeyer
12. Guillermo Gonzalez
13. Tyson Peterson
14. Dalin Swenson
15. David Adlington
16. Cory Dreyer
17. Dylan Crystaloski
18. Chris Alkire
19. John Rapp
20. Jamie Denison
21. Matthew Scotch
22. Ron Champion
23. Gary Kasper