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Saturday, the weather was in the mid 60’s and the sun’s rays were intense, the water temperature ranged from 56 in the morning to 65 degrees in the afternoon. In the afternoon, the wind roared 20 to 30 miles per hour. Once the lines were out, Anthony Garica won the Kayak Bass Fishing (KBF) tournament on Lake Havasu with 92.50”. Garica had found some bed fish during practice on Wednesday, the water was clear and perfect for finding beds. On Thursday, he returned to the same area and found the water had muddied and could only catch small fish.
“I tossed a dart on the map and hoped to find clear water.”
Late on Friday, the day before the tournament, he found some clear water and a few nice bed fish willing to bite. On Saturday, he arrived at his tossed dart location, first thing in the morning, he lost a giant around 6 pounds on a swimbait. Garcia worked two different baits to catch fish, a drop-shot and a jig head paired with a lizard. Garcia made an adjustment by fishing deeper. He had 4 nice fish by 10 AM. The wind started to blast so the bed fishing was out of the question. He had no choice but to abandon his sight fishing pattern and make the adjustment to catch at least one more fish.
“The bigger fish were in a little deeper water then the day before.”
Garcia struggled to catch his final fish to fill his limit but at 2:23 PM, lines out was at 2:30 PM, with 7 minutes left, he landed an 18” smallmouth.
“I didn’t think it would seal the deal, but with the 18” Smallie, I was going to do pretty well.”
This is Garcia’s second win within a few weeks of each other. Garcia gave a huge shout-out to his girlfriend, Amanda and his family for all their support and his sponsors IRod, Old Town Kayaks, Dakota Lithium Batteries, SIMMS, Boonedox USA and Tackle Shack USA.
JJ Gibbs came in second place with 90.00”. Gibbs normally fishes out of a bass boat, and this was his first kayak tournament. He found out really quickly that fishing from a kayak is difficult and there is a learning curve that can only be learned by time on the water fishing from a kayak.
“I found myself stuck, I needed to move to the opposite end of the lake.”
Gibbs walked his kayak two miles up-river to his launching area and left it there for the night. He flipped tulles in one to five feet of water all day long. His lure of choice was a green pumpkin jig. Gibbs focused on dirty water to catch his fish. Even though he lost several fish that really hurt, he still finished in second.
“I lost fish that would have got me the win.”
Gibbs thanked his sponsors IRod, Barrett Custom Marine, Bass Cat Boats and Gibbs Propeller. Gibbs also thanked KBF, KAA and Kayak Bass Nation.
Jeff Bias came in third place with 90.00” at Lake Havasu. I was not able to contact Jeff for an interview.
Top Ten:
1. Anthony Garcia 92.50”
2. JJ Gibbs 90.00”
3. Jeff Bias 90.00”
4. John Toscano 89.75”
5. Rachel Uribe 87.00”
6. Jon Demonet 85.25”
7. Caymen Rasmussen 84.75”
8. Bryce Gibbs 75.50”
9. Bradley Kuhlin 62.00”
10. Brian Soefje 54.25”
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