County announces kayak bass fishing tournament

Clay County tourism officials announced a new kayak bass fishing tournament for 2023, which they said could position the county as a destination for fishing in the Sunshine State.

County Commissioner and Tourist Development Council Chair Mike Cella made the announcement at Whitey’s Fish Camp in Fleming Island on Wednesday, Nov. 16.

Cella said tourism impacts the county more than most people realize.

“In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, visitors spent $218.7 million here in Clay County,” he said. “They paid $46.8 million in federal, state, and local taxes. They supported nearly 3,500 jobs.”

Cella added that if all the 3,500 Clay jobs supported by tourism were within one organization, that business would be one of the top five largest employers in the county.

Cella said that after the county launched its tourism website: ExploreClay.com, officials were surprised that the Number 1 search term inquired on the site was “fishing.”

“The good news is that visitors really want to come to Clay County to fish,” he said. “The problem is that we’ve had very little fishing content on the website or even a local destination that featured fishing.”

Cella said the kayak bass fishing tournament fills that void, with the added benefit that local anglers may also participate in the event.

Invented the sport

When introducing tournament organizer, Chad Hoover, Cella said the Navy veteran invented the sport of kayak bass fishing.

“Chad founded Kayak Bass Fishing back in 2009, and since that time, KBF has set the pace for the kayak fishing industry and has brought thousands of anglers into the sport,” Cella said, “hosting competitors from Mexico, Canada, and every place in between, all across every American state.”  

He added that Hoover’s organization organized the first-ever kayak bass fishing national championship in Marshall County, Kentucky.

“That was at Kentucky Lake in 2016,” Cella said, “and in 2019 (KBF) co-hosted the first-ever kayak fishing tournament with a national boat series: the KBF-FLW World Cup in Hot Springs, Arkansas.”

Old Florida

Hoover touted Clay County as the authentic Florida and said some of the popular tourist spots in the state are mirages of what Florida really is.

“This is old Florida,” he said of Clay County, “right on the East coast. It’s the tea-colored water. It’s the Spanish moss hanging from the trees.  You can catch a redfish in one cast, bass on another cast, and a crappy on another.”

He added that the northerly flowing St. Johns River turns from brackish to salty around the Buckman Bridge, which is also near the Duval-Clay County line.

“So, it’s that perfect sweet spot to do a little bit of fresh, a little bit of salt or as we call fresh water: sweetwater. So, it’s a little bit salty, it’s a little bit sweet.”

Hoover said the county offers conveniences other areas of the state cannot. “You’re not sitting in an hour-and-a-half of traffic to get to the fishing spot,” he said. “You’re not fighting with 500 people at the boat ramp.”

County officials have said in the past that they were attracted to kayak bass fishing because the vessels do not require a boat ramp to launch, and the county is short on boat ramps.

Hoover said his sport benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic as people searched for outdoor activities in which they could distance themselves.

“Fishermen are the original social distancers, he said. “If you watch a fisherman when they go fishing, they do everything they can to get as far away from everybody else as they can.”

Catch, photo, release

Hoover said he is bringing his Trail Series, Challenge Series and Pro Series Championships to the county in October of 2023.

He added that in January 2023, his organization will host a virtual tournament that pays incremental prizes throughout the year.

“And we’re gonna use that to continuously evolve how we promote Clay County, Florida, and to put it on the fishing map,” he said.  “We’re not trying to do this as a flash in the pan, or one day, or one week or one month type thing. This is a long-term partnership where we can really show people that when you’re coming down the interstate, headed to some of the more well-known southern destinations in Florida, you’re passing a gem that you should stop at.”

Hoover did not go into the details of the year-long virtual tournament, but county officials have described it as a stay-here-catch-here promotion where anglers qualify for the October event by catching a fish in Clay County and staying overnight.

He said the casual setup of the virtual tournament will appeal to a wide variety of sportsmen.

“Whether you like to fish for a specific species or whether you like to be uber-competitive,” he said, “I think we’ve put together a really cool program to allow you to come here…enjoy the fishing experience, not have this pressure of an event over your head, but while you’re doing that, snap a photo of that fish and upload it to our tournament management system, which is going to allow you a chance to win prizes.”

Hoover added that unlike other fishing tournaments, kayak bass fishing measures catches by length, not weight.  That allows anglers to avoid boating to a central location to weigh each day’s catch. Instead, fishermen photograph their catches using their phones, upload the pictures to Hoover’s organization, then release the fish.

“The reason we do catch-photo-release is that one: we don’t have live wells on our kayaks, two: it’s better for the fish and the fishery itself, and three: it’s just a better way to gather data,” he said.

Hoover said his organization has developed protocols to detect cheating.  One is that each angler is given a unique token at the start of the tournament, and the token must be in any photos uploaded. This prevents competitors from uploading pictures taken before the tournament.

“They lay (the fish) on a standardized measuring board, and they have a lot of parameters in our rules that they have to comply with,” Hoover added.  “And then we have a cadre of judges behind the scenes that judge the fish and scrutinize the photos. We have a lot of things we tell the anglers that we’re checking, and then we have some things that we don’t tell the anglers that we’re checking so that way, we can make sure that it’s valid.”

Hoover said his organization has established a solid track record of catching cheaters.

“We’ve caught them,” he said, “we’ve kind of nailed them to the wall, and that’s served as a little bit of a scarecrow to prevent people from doing that in the future.”

Hoover said he had not determined the locations for the tournament awards ceremonies and will make that decision while consulting with local officials.

Fishing destination

Hoover said the county can compete as a fishing destination, but it will take work.

“The one thing you’re up against in the State of Florida trying to stand out as a bass fishery is that there’s a lot of great bass fishing in the state, and Clay County is on the way to most of it,” he told county leaders.

Hoover said he hopes to change public awareness of Clay County from being a place on the way to other bass fishing spots to a fishing destination in its own right.

“You should stop here, even if you’re going somewhere else,” he said. “Stop in on the way, stop in on the way back out or just make this your destination because not only do you have a chance to catch great fish and a lot of fish, but you have a chance of catching that fish of a lifetime.”