Did this donkey help me win? Kayak Anglers of Eastern PA 2024 Tournament on Spruce Run Reservoir

This past week on one of New Jersey’s most interesting lakes we held the kickoff for the Kayak Anglers of Eastern PA season. I had a ton of luck pre-fishing there with a multi species BLAST, but have never really taken that success over to tournament day… well, Saturday May 18th, I was able to break that streak.
The day started out great, and as it always is with KAEPA, 35 anglers (including some of the best kayak anglers in NJ/PA) getting rigged up and ready before sunrise. The sense of comradery and community is one of the things that sets KAEPA apart from the other tourney trails.
At 5:30 all 35 of us hustled to our spots, with my buddy Kevin and I making a huge run to the far side of the lake. When lines in happened at 6, I managed my first fish of the day, a decent smallmouth fairly quickly and I wondered if something special might be afoot. Then, as with all things, I suffered a huge setback on a big lake like Spruce… my fish finder / graph failed (in 3 feet of water was telling me I was sitting in 120 feet… sidescan wasn’t working, nothing). After fussing with it for a while, I gave up and decided to do what I could and go sight fishing, and see if I couldn’t leverage one of the patterns I found with big Largemouth sitting tight in the V of fallen and sunken trees.
As I made my way back across the lake I made it over to where we had launched and as I came up shallow, I watched a huge shadow meander under my boat. I lobbed a cast toward where I thought he’d be, and after a quick twitch, twitch, my rod doubled over and my drag started singing. That 21.5” slob ended up being the one that won the day for me.
I decided after that stroke of luck, to check the far part of the lake that was flatter and more shallow (and that I hadn’t pre-fished), and ended up culling two more fish, and landing another 1/2 dozen keepers that didn’t really help the cause, but made for a fun afternoon of fishing! I even got a great net shot of our buddy Jamie bringing in a really nice largie!
One of the coolest things (for me) was sharing the leaderboard with my buddies Kevin and Eric (both of whom I was positive were going to overtake me in the final stretch), who when Eli and I first started to fish with KAEPA were two of the genuinely nicest guys we met.
I've got to thank Dustin Theobald and Jason Splain for all the heard work, blood, sweat and tears they put out year in and year out to make these events so special, to build the great community we have in KAEPA and for hosting these great events.
Super grateful for all of our sponsors 412 Bait Co, Neverlost Gear, Scared Fishless Tackle Company, ZPRO Lithium, Fishing Online, Underbelly Custom Paints And Baits, and Five Mountain Outfitters Co. for their support for all of our events. Extra special thanks to Charles for always pitching in the additional love from Rapala.
For those that aren’t aware, 25% of all of our event dues for each of our clubs go to the charities that each club selects. This year our KAEPA charities are two incredibly worthy causes - A Woman's Place and The Children's Home of Easton, and I couldn’t be more proud to be part of a group that is supporting these organizations.

[@SammysBaits]

Yeah, I kinda liked that place too! I had a much better prefish than the tournament but since the prefish was so much fun I will overlook the bad tournament. Can't wait to visit next spring. Congratulations!

[@gowiththegilmours]

@@SammysBaits it’s funny…. My prefish was fun, but tourney day, none of the fish were where I found em…. Patterns held, just had to look in different places!