CKA 2019 Tournament of Champions: Results

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CKA 2019 Tournament of Champions: Results

The top 25 anglers in the Angler of the Year race faced off on Jordan Lake today, bringing our tournament season to an end with a high stakes event in which the winner would walk away with $1,000. Fishing was tough, with the majority of the limits averaging under 15” per bass, but in the end Keith McGee emerged as champion, earning 1st place with an 84” total. The win adds another notch to Keith’s belt, which already includes the 2018 Rookie of the Year prize and a single tournament win this season at Kerr-Scott lake.

Rounding out the top 3 were William Queen in 2nd place with 79.50” and Jacob Miles in third with 74.25”. William and Jacob won the Zee Bait Co. Gift certificates for their finishes. Additionally, Ryan Freeman, who was 11th place and first out of the money, also won a Zee Bait Co. certificate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CKA wants to thank everyone who competed in today’s event. We love the low-tech, high stakes format we have developed for this tournament. Next year will be the 5th season of the Tournament of Champions, and we have a great surprise in store for this late season tradition…..

The top 10 are listed below.  Thank you again to all of our sponsors!

Get Outdoors  Boonedox On the Water Innovations  Zee Bait Co. Bending Branches YakAttack CalCoast Torqeedo

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CKA 2019 Tournament of Champions

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The 2019 CKA Tournament of Champions will be held from 7 am – 3 pm at Jordan Lake on Saturday, October 26th. We will use the Ebenezer Church Boat Ramp for the post-event check in. The ramp address is: 2582 Beaver Creek Rd, Apex, NC 27502

Format

The tournament will follow all of the standard rules, with the following changes:

  • The Tournament will be a 1 day event(rain date is Sunday, October 27th)
  • The event will have a 5 fish limit
  • There is no entry fee
  • Anglers can use any Identifier card from the 2019 season. These include CKA and KBF ID cards. Anglers can also use a blank ID card or make their own ID card with a sponsor logo on it, so long as the ID code is clearly legible on the card.
  • The tournament ID code will be released on the evening of Friday, October 25th at 7 pm.
  • The tournament will not use Tourneyx. Tournament directors will judge photos at check in.
  • This is a multi-launch event. All public ramps on the lake are allowed; water adjacent to the lake that is not navigable without crossing a barrier is off-limits (for example, Weaver Creek Wildlife area is off-limits).
  • Tournament hours are 7 am-3 pm
  • Anglers may not launch prior to 6:30 am.
  • Anglers begin fishing at 7 am.
  • Anglers must be present at check in by 4 pm or they will be disqualified.
  • The top 10 will be asked to post photos to Facebook or to message them to judges.

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The 2019 CKA Season

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The 2019 Season and Gate City Classic

The CKA 2019 Tournament season came full circle on September 28th when we held our final check in at Get Outdoors Paddlesports in Greensboro, North Carolina. We ended our season where it began with the Burlington Bash, when the seasonal grind began on a cold March day. Over the course of the year Will Seely and the store staff fixed our boats, offered us member discounts and hosted two tournament check-ins. Yesterday he provided the generous gift cards for the Angler of the Year and Rookie of the Year prize packages.

Over the course of the year, more than 450 anglers competed in a total of 8 CKA tournaments. There were combined events (the Yadkin Slam, the Battle on the Border), a team event as well as stand-alone events, we raised over $2,000 for Heroes on the Water and a nearly one dozen sponsor companies supported our anglers. It was a year of surprises (Tuckertown – who knew!) and a year in which 8 different anglers won 1st place at a CKA event, a sure testament to the high quality of competition on our trail.

It all culminated at the Gate City Classic with the resolution of the 2019 Angler of the Year race. In 2018, the Rookie of the Year race went to the wire, with Keith McGee the eventual victor over Graham Reay in a very close finish. The 2019 Angler of the Year race was similar in that not two but three anglers fought to the very last cast. It was ultimately decided by the thinnest of margins as the top 3 were divided from one another by 6 points each. A difference of 3-4 places at any of their top 6 events would have made this a different outcome. In the end, Will Lambert won the AOY prize, and long-time CKA veteran Joey Sullivan finished second.

Additionally, Sammy Wilson won the 2019 Rookie of the Year title and also finished 3rd in the AOY race. All three anglers had a remarkable run, and we congratulate them all. Trophy presentations will be held at our 1st event of 2020, when the previous year’s champions present the trophies to the winners, and a new title race begins!

The Gate City Classic concluded with a special prize this season. Denny Romero built a custom On the Water Innovations kayak trailer as a prize for CKA anglers who fish hard to raise money every season for Heroes on the Water. Qualifying anglers had to fish a minimum of 6 events and Denny’s daughter drew the winning number for the highly anticipated prize. Teng Yang won the trailer even though he nearly missed the drawing because he was asleep on the store couch when the tickets were distributed!

CKA wishes to thank all of the anglers who fished with us this season. We also wish to thank Kayak Bass Fishing for its support of our club.

Most of all, we owe a great debt of gratitude to our sponsors. Please click on the links and buy their great products!

Get Outdoors  Boonedox On the Water Innovations  Zee Bait Co. Bending Branches YakAttack CalCoast Torqeedo

KBF 2020 National Championship Qualifiers

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KBF allowed partner clubs to qualify 10% of the field at our 2019 trail events. These are known as “at large” qualifying events, and they constitute a more grassroots approach to providing anglers a chance to fish the KBF National Championship, the world’s largest and most lucrative kayak fishing tournament.

KBF streamlined the process this year by shifting more of the paperwork to a KBF statistician and to the partner clubs. Over the course of the season CKA tournament directors worked with KBF and anglers to make sure qualifying spots were submitted correctly. This week we submitted the most recent batch of angler names who qualified at the CKA Kerr-Scott event. Those names will appear on the next roster update.

In total, 20 CKA anglers qualified through our Trail for the KBF National Championship at Guntersville in April of 2020. Yes, THE Guntersville. The purse for 1st place at that event will be $75,000 and a total of $250,000 in total prizes, an unprecedented sum in our sport.* We couldn’t be happier to see the names of CKA anglers added, and we hope one of you will go there and bring the trophy home to North Carolina.

There are 2 remaining ways to qualify for the 2020 National Championship this season. First, the top 10% of the field at the Gate City Classic will be eligible. Remember you must be a KBF member prior to the event in order to be eligible. Second, CKA will receive a number of spots to award to anglers in its end of year AOY rankings. We reserve one of those spots for the Rookie of the Year, but other spots roll down to the 25th place in the standings. You must be a KBF member, however, prior to the final tournament.

In sum, you still have a chance to qualify for a ticket to attend the biggest event in our growing sport. We wish you all the best of luck, and we hope to see you in Alabama next year!

For more info about the 2020 National Championship, click here: https://www.kayakbassfishing.com/2020-kbfnc/

To become a KBF member, click here: https://www.kayakbassfishing.com/join/

To register for the Gate City Classic, click here and then follow the second link to Get Outdoors. https://tourneyx.com/app/tourney/cka-2019-event-8-gate-city-classic

 

*An earlier version of this post mistakenly stated the 1st place payout would be $75,000. The sum was corrected.