Get Outdoors Bass Tournament

Erick · Post by **Erick** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:38 am

Fished in the Get Outoors Bass event this past Saturday up in Greensboro NC. They are a local kayak retailer and this is the 2nd year for the particular event, although they changed the time of year.

Last weekend prior to the tournament it was sunny and 70's. This past weekend the high was 38 degrees and it rained all day. Wind picked up a couple of times....but I will never complain about bad weather for a Florida event ever again. It was easy to layer up for your body but after several hours, even the layers on your feet and heavy duty gloves become soaked, really not providing any warmth at all. And eventually the "fun" of kayak fishing goes away when you barely can flip the bail.

We fished Lake Higgins...thanks to some recon from a friend of mine. Fished with a fellow angler that I have met through the NCAngler site. There was only one other kayaker on that particular lake although another showed up around noon. There were I think 7 lakes to choose from in the area. There were about 30 anglers in the event, with 3 fishing the fly division.

After about 5 hours of casting, during one of my breaks Scott switched to trolling and managed to catch a 4 lb Largemouth on a Rat-L-Trap. It measured in at 18.25 inches which turned out to be good enough for 3rd place. I managed one 12.5 inch bass on a Rat-L-Trap trolling also. Missed hooking up on two other strikes, and I still have a lot to learn about fishing that way. But in those conditions it actually made sense.

1st Place went to Phil Ruckart, who is on the Hook1 Crew and a local kayak guide...think his bass was 20 inches, and I think 2nd Place was 19 inches. It was tough conditions for fishing and the winners really deserve the kudos for jobs well done.

BlueCrab · Post by **BlueCrab** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:55 am

Congrats! 8)

I am curious: Was this a single best fish for the weigh-in? Measuring board photo or did you have to bring the fish in?

Erick · Post by **Erick** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:44 am

Single fish (largest Largemouth Bass), photo and release....gave you the measuring board and unique token at the Captains Meeting on Friday night for your photos the next day. So it was largest bass......regardless of chosen method (conventional or fly). All artificial. Both had three places. Only one guy caught anything on fly, and it wasnt big enough to take overall, so he won the fly division. And fly covered biggest fish of any species but he was the only one fishing fly to catch anything. So they then gave five places on conventional rather than the three using two of the prizes from the fly division.