Sweitzer 2021 YAB Spawnapalooza Champion - 4/17/21

[MKA]

Yak-A-Bass (YAB) held their third regular season event on Saturday, 4/17/21. A packed field of 123 anglers came out to see who would be crowned the 2021 Spawnapalooza champion. Anglers had their choice of 5 fisheries (4 lakes and a river) to include: Lake Berryessa, New Melones Reservoir, Lake Don Pedro, Lake Tulloch or the California Delta. The end goal was to see who could submit the biggest five fish limit in inches.

Per Tournament Director James Snyder, “It was a crapshoot, no one body of water stood out over the others. Anglers had to work for their bites. It wasn’t a situation where you could go to one body of water and dominate the field. Within the top 5 you had anglers on New Melones, Lake Berryessa and the Delta.”

Chad Sweitzer of Sonora, CA figured them out and took home the title on his home lake, New Melones Reservoir in his first season in the kayak. He is no stranger to New Melones where he can be found slinging the big baits hunting for giants. Sweitzer reported that he caught his limit on the Deps 250 in Carp, River 2 Sea S Waver in Hitch and a Zoom Trick Worm on the dropshot in Green Pumpkin. He would target his fish shallow on long tapering points and spawning flats with the swimbaits and then would pick up the remainder on the dropshot.

Big fish of the tournament was 21 inches and three of them were submitted. Gustavo Rojas of Lodi submitted one and Anthony Malasavanh of Pittsburg submitted a pair of them!

Here’s your top ten:
1. Chad Sweitzer – 89.75 inches
2. Pua Yang – 88.25 inches
3. Dang Xiong – 87.75 inches
4. Greg Blanchard – 86.00 inches
5. Drew Boles – 85.50 inches
6. Jiongbo Zhang – 84.75 inches
7. Jonathan Harvey – 84.50 inches
8. Alden Walden – 83.25 inches
9. Shaun Leytem – 81.50 inches
10. York Sell – 81.50 inches

Next up for YAB is the California Delta on 5/22/21. Snyder mentioned that this would be a 6 hour event to make sure anglers had ample time to pack up and head to Clear Lake for the CA BASS Nation and WWBT Kayak Series event the following day.

[mark poulson]

Way to go Chad!!!