We have reached the exact mid-way point of the 2024 CKA season. With four tournaments completed, the race for Angler of the Year has tightened up, the Rookie of the Year race remains wide open, and qualifying for the Tournament of Champions is also largely indeterminate.
Looking ahead, Jordan, Mackintosh, Mayo and the Gate City Classic remain on the regular season schedule, followed by the Tournament of Champions and the Battle on the Border. That’s a lot of good fishing, and a lot can change between now and then.
Malena takes the lead in the Rookie of the Year race
CKA has recognized first-year anglers since 2018. That was when the club noticed that new competitors were showing up at a steady rate. As a result, CKA instituted the Rookie of the Year award with the generous support of Get Outdoors Pedal and Paddle.
Since that time, Keith McGee, Sammy Wilson, Charles Crews†, Jared Stanley, Bruce Deel and Ryan Hayes have won the CKA Rookie of the year award.
Thomas Malena has thrown his hat in the ring to take his shot at the 2024 title. With four events in the books, he holds the lead. He’s a long-time bass angler, but new to kayak fishing. In his words:
“I’ve only had my kayak for about a year now. Around the time I was getting out of the military and was moving here I started watching a lot of the big names on Youtube. I hadn’t done much bass fishing in the last five years and missed the hell out of it, so I knew this was something I would be doing in the long run.”
Malena now faces an epic schedule: CKA will visit two of the state’s best bass lakes (Jordan and Mackintosh) over the next month. Then, we will fish Lake Mayo, a fishery unlike any other in the region. We wrap up at the Gate City Classic. When it is over, the top three scores of each rookie, plus the Gate City Classic score, will determine their place in the standings.
Malena will be in the running. As he told CKA:
“I am planning to make every event that I can. I’m taking this year as a learning experience but still have the goal to win ROY. Honestly, besides a pre-fish here and there, it’s been my first time on all of these lakes. I just ordered my first graph after riding the struggle bus at Randleman. I’m hoping that along with a lot of practice will help me make the jump I need to compete.”
Lambert wins on Randleman, sets club record
CKA history began on Randleman Reservoir in 2013, and we visit the lake nearly every season. In recent years, we have fished the lake in alternate years.
Randleman is loaded with both CKA history and big bass. For example:
- Bryan Tsiolkas won his first kayak tournament there in 2014.
- The lake is a who’s who of CKA champions. In addition to Tsiolkas, Matt Hawj (2015), Ricky Rowland (2016), PC Hawj (2017), Will Lambert (2019) and Marcus Smith (2021) won events on Randleman.
- Cory Dreyer/Buster Swisher won a team event on Randleman in 2016.
- CKA hosted KBF TRAIL events on Randleman in 2017 and 2020.
- Bryan Tsiolkas won there in 2023, on his way to becoming two-time CKA Angler of the Year. When Tsiolkas won on Randleman in 2023, he became the first angler to win two events on the lake.
Basically, if you win on Randleman reservoir, you join an elite company in the CKA Hall of Champions. Will Lambert had already won on Randleman, and now by winning there twice he joins Bryan Tsiolkas as the only two-time champion on the lake.
Lambert has however distinguished himself by landing the longest overall limit in the five-fish era of CKA history.
CKA adopted a five-fish limit during the 2020 season. In the five seasons since that began, the longest five fish limit was the 102” landed by Bryan Tsiolkas in the 2022 “Summer Lakes” event (runner-up is 101” caught by Jeremy Hicks at Mackintosh in 2022).
When Will Lambert landed a five-fish limit of 104.25” at Randleman last week, his limit rewrote the CKA history books. It is yet another reason for why the case can be made for Lambert being the best kayak bass angler in North Carolina during 2023-2024.
Note also that of the six anglers who have won individual events on Randleman, five were at CKA Angler of the Year winners at some point. Is Lambert on his way to a second title? The odds are in his favor. But with four events left, anything can happen.
UP NEXT
CKA fishes Jordan Lake on June 29, 2024. Register here: https://app.fishingchaos.com/tournament/n8zjgat2s3AoGbiCTLIu
About the Anglers
Will Lambert fishes with JB Custom Rods.
Thomas Malena uses Tiny Boat Nation, Berkley, Gary Yamamoto Baits, Lews and Shimano reels, and 3 Waters Kayaks.
CKA’s 2024 Season is brought to you by
Dakota Lithium Batteries
Click here to see the full 2024 schedule.
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First published June 19, 2024 (on June 20, a correction was made to the score count that determines ROY, and to the name of the 2023 ROY).
All content and photos © Carolina Kayak Anglers LLC, 2024.
