Whenever I see the word Extreme used as an adjective, I immediately equate whatever word it modifies with those douche bags in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle; you know, the Extreme Sports Punks.  Let’s face it: these days, everything is extreme: extreme sports, extreme video, extreme tech, extreme music, extreme tacos, extreme chips, extreme energy drinks, extreme soda, and so on. Hell, Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt haven’t had this kind of branding for their band Extreme since their song “Play with Me” was used in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure back in 1989.  But, if everything is extreme, then nothing is extreme. Hyperbole Maximus. Extreme douche bags. Basically, I figure anyone who’s tagging their brand with “extreme” is trying to excite a population of pre-pubescent, hacker wannabes who spend their Saturday nights gorging on Doritos and Hot Pockets while hyperclicking between World of Warcraft, 4Chan, and Tom Scharr videos and griping to one another on their Sennheiser Gaming Headset about the chicks they can’t get and how their bitchin Mountain Dew Code Red caffeine buzz has them tweeking real good. So, when I started hearing about the Extreme Kayak Fishing Tournament series, I offered up my most self-righteous of guffaws. “What crap,” I thought. Billing something as magnificent and as accessible as kayak fishing as extreme seemed to me to be tantamount to letting sunbathing qualify as a new addition to the X-Games.

But, I’m no armchair critic. If I’m going to gripe about something—particularly something in the realm of saltwater sportfishing—I’m going to check it out for myself. So this past Saturday, I chugged my 16-ounce Red Bull and 5 Hour Energy extreme breakfast and pushed the truck south to Pompano Beach to fish in the first of the two part Location Pompano Beach Extreme Kayak Fishing Summer Slam Tournament. And let me report that this is one bad-ass fishing tournament that has every right to brand itself as Extreme. I’m even going to bow to their use of the Chiller font red type in their logo. Screw the cliché; we’re Extreme Kayak Fishing Tournament Dot Org. Hell yeah. I’d put their logo sticker on my truck. I might even get that tat—and there are a lot of great fishing tats at this tourney (made my two seem kinda impotent).

This is flat out a great tournament run by a great bunch of people and fished by a great bunch of anglers. Saturday’s Extreme Kayak Fishing Tournament was exceptional. Joe and Maria Hector deserve all kinds of kudos for the event they have developed.

Saturday’s event kicked off just after 6:00am, with 117 kayak anglers launching from the beach just north of the Pompano Beach Pier. I have to say, there was something spectacular about looking out to the clear-skied sunrise to see that many yaks headed out into the Atlantic. The Yak Armada. As various anglers broke out from the main peloton toward various reefs, wrecks, and the Gulf Stream, I started to get the sense of why Extreme was appropriate here. About four miles off the beach, I watched a handful of tournament anglers drifting and trolling in patterns alongside big offshore sportfishing boats, center consoles, and bay boats, all targeting the same fish. I laughed to myself at the thought of the fuel bills those guys were racking up compared with those of us in our yaks and the ultimate catch-to-fuel ratio that would inevitably emerge.

I trolled farther out, pulling a drone spoon on a small planer and a naked rigged ballyhoo.  The morning’s water was amazing: easy to paddle and clear. And, I learned an extreme lesson: don’t forget to clip ALL rods and reels to lanyards. The ballyhoo took a solid hit; the line screamed. I grabbed for the rod, missed my grip, and my Penn 340 GTI and rod took a trip to the deep blue briny. Extreme  loss.

A couple of miles farther out, I found a solid little weed line with one or two nice grass mats and gave up trolling for drifting. I chummed the hell out of that grass—glass minnows and sardines. I ran tag lines out with sardines and rigged butterflied mullet, and I alternated jigging between a Shimano butterfly jig deep and a black and white Spro bucktail closer to the surface.  A half dozen or so schoolie dolphin came by, raided the glass minnows, flipped me off, and left. I kept the drift for another hour and a few. GPS showed me just under 8 miles away from the launch site, so I re-rigged the troll set up on different outfits and started west. GPS told me I was 8 hours away from the launch site. WTF? Local knowledge prevails. I had no idea the current was pushing me that far north that fast. It took me a little over two hours to get back within a mile of the beach, but I was four miles north of the Del Ray pier with the wind pushing out of the Southwest. This was no longer the pleasant less than 10 mph and less than 2-foot seas the forecast had called for. The weather had come up rough. This sucked. Extremely.

I paddled south hard, but according to the GPS, I was moving at 1.5 mph and the distance between me and the tournament station was increasing. I still had the drone spoon trolled out behind the boat, but now I was backtrolling, like they do on the Kenai up in Alaska where the water moves so fast that all you do is anchor and let the current push your trolling lure around.  Only I was moving back with the lure.

Just south of the Del Ray Pier, I put the yak on the beach.  Demoralized. Extremely demoralized. There was no way I was making it back by the 2:00 weigh in. I thought I’d walk out to the road and hitch a ride back to the parking lot, get the truck and sneak away unnoticed. I’ve paddled some hard waters over long distances in my career on the yak, but these last few miles were kicking my ass. Another tournament angler paddled by.  Slowly. Extremely slowly. Dory started singing in my head: “Just keep swimming; just keep paddling.”

Then the tarpon showed up. A herd of them, about twenty, daisy chaining, gulping. And, I’m back in the yak in pursuit. Black and white Spro right out in front of the group. One breaks away from the school, and slams the Spro. Three solid sets and he’s hooked. Not huge, maybe 50 pounds, but I’ve jumped him. And, as is often the case, as fast as he hit, he’s gone. I take up the paddle again just as the thunder introduces itself to the situation.

I have a list of places I never want to be again. The Hillsboro Inlet Channel as a line of thunderstorms is pushing in now tops that list. Big rollers. Six feet plus easily. And every yacht, fishing boat, cruiser, tour boat, and jet ski around are scrambling to get in ahead of the storms not giving a rat’s ass about the guy in the kayak. A 42-foot Searay Sundancer crosses off my bow; a 23-foot center console just behind me. I take up the mantra “not going to flip. Not going to flip.” I rethink my earlier position on their fuel bills compared with mine and would have gladly paid their fuel costs if one of them would pluck me out of this mess and take me to the beach. No such luck. Just keep paddling.

With lightening popping and rain just starting to fall, I hit the beach at the check-in point just after 3:00. I missed the weigh in, but made it in time to watch Joe Hector photograph the winners. There were some nice fish there, and some really nice people. And, thank god, they hadn’t put the kegs away yet. It was a great atmosphere despite the afternoon weather.

The crew at Extreme Kayak Fishing run a great tournament. Their support for the Broward Children Center is more than admirable. The tournament is handsomely sponsored by great companies like Nautical Ventures, Adrenaline Rods, Turbo USA, Costa, and a bunch of others. It was also great to see Joe and the fellas from Hillsboro Inlet Live Bait supplying anglers with live bait and serving as a safety boat during the tournament. They passed me twice on the water, and I’ll confess, I nearly called for a ride in, but pride (or stupidity) kept me from doing so. At least I now know why the tournament requires anglers to carry a radio: so everyone around would know if I woosed out. A shout out, too, to Lewis from Blue Marlin Chronicles supplying the scales and offering help on the water.

Kudos to the winners of this first part of a two-leg series:

Michael Wood took 1^st place with 2 kings with a total aggregate weight of 26.4 pounds. Michael took home $3500.00 cash sponsored by Turbo USA and the top trophy cup supplied by Broward Engraving.

2^nd place went to Dwayne Stewert with a sweet catch of 1 king weighing in at 24.0 pounds. Dwayne received  $1500.00 cash sponsored by Performance Nissan, a Hobie Outback from Nautical Ventures, and a plaque from Global Fish Mounts. This fish also took top honors for Biggest Pelagic.

3^rd place went to Marlin Matt Eckert—that’s right, the same Marlin Matt who fought a blue marlin from his yak for 11 hours during Extreme Kayak Fishing’s Battle in the Bahamas last month. Matt brought a 22-pound blackfin tuna to the scales to win $500.00 cash, a Hobie Revo from Nautical Ventures, and a plaque from Global Fish Mounts.

4^th place was awarded to Kristjan Must for 1 king weighing in at 19.8 pounds. Kristjan won $200.00 cash, a pair of Costa Del Mar glasses, and a plaque from Global Fish Mounts.

5^th place was taken by Christopher Simmons with a catch of  2 kings with a total aggregate weight of 18.6 ponds, earning him a pair of Costa Del Mar glasses and a Rod & Reel generously provided by Aces Bait & Tackle.

Other winners included:
Biggest Pelagic- Dwayne Stewert, King 24.0lbs
Trash Can Slam- Jay Kamensky, Bonita- 19.8lbs
Wreck the weight- Shawn Fields, AJ 15.6lbs (Adrenaline Rods)

CALCUTTA- Josh Henson, KING 18.0lb $2000.00 cash
CALCUTTA- Matthew Eckert, TUNA 22.2lbs $80.00 cash

Keep in mind that this was the first of a two-part series. Part Two will be held August 16, 2014. Information about registration can be found at http://www.extremekayakfishingtournament.org/-summer-slam-entry.html

You better believe I’ll be there. Smarter. More extreme.

Here are a few more pics courtesy of extremekayakfishing.com from this great event:

 FISH ON!

 

Blackfin Tuna, Extreme Kayak Fishing, fish, Fishing, Kayak Fishing, King Mackerel, Tournament

By Sid

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