Kayakcentre Fishing Tournament 2023: at the end of June, after years of absence, the Kayakcentre Fishing Tournament in Stad aan ‘t Haringvliet took place again. A tournament where, over two days, you had to catch three perch, three zander and one pike each time. A friendly atmosphere with anglers from all over Europe, 50 participants in total, each with their own well-equipped kayak, almost all of them Hobies.

On the first competition day there was hardly any wind during the first hours. The start horn sounded at 7 a.m. and everyone pedalled onto the water as hard as they could. I headed towards my first spot, with Daniël Van der Post at my side, and neither of us wanted to give way, both convinced we were paddling toward the same spot. Luckily Daniël moved on a bit further at the last moment, so I ended up with the whole spot to myself. On arrival I first went back and forth, checking the Garmin GT56-UHD Sidescan to see where the fish were at that moment. The drop-off turned out to be empty, unlike two weeks earlier, but just behind the drop-off I did see a few good fish on LiveScope. I cast at several fish on LiveScope, and each one settled neatly on the bottom in the depths without showing any interest in the (actually quite nice!) lure. That didn’t promise much good. After casting at a few more pelagic fish while drifting, none of which showed any interest either, I moved into the shallows.

Without wind it was easy enough to stand up and cast between the weeds. A few casts at an interesting structure produced no bite, but while standing in the boat I did see a few small schools of baitfish pass by. Surely there has to be perch here?! I started casting an Illex DD Chubby, again without any contact with fish. Until I fished the Chubby a bit more aggressively. Four metres from the kayak I suddenly saw a 45+ perch come up behind it and strike and… miss. Damn it!

So I switched to the Strike King KVD Jerkbait, but the perch had lost interest. Meanwhile the tournament was already three hours in. Yes, I’d lost too much time chasing fish that showed no interest in biting at all… After the perch fiasco, I paddled all the way to the other side, toward a spot where, during training, I’d caught a nice run of zander and a 110 cm pike. On the way I couldn’t resist casting at a few fish I saw passing on LiveScope, and one massive pike over a metre long got my lure dangled behind its head for a good quarter of an hour, unfortunately without result. She also just swam away too fast, so casting accurately was already difficult to begin with. Once I’d finally crossed the water, I first had to cast a few more times in the shallows, at a few spots where I’d already come across perch. Unfortunately, no contact here either.

Then it was time for my better pelagic spot. I started cruising around calmly, looking for fish between 8-10 metres deep. Suddenly I came across a long, narrow signal at four metres deep — that has to be a predator fish hunting! I positioned the kayak and, thanks to the wind being calm, it stayed nicely in the desired orientation. I cast at the fish, let the lure sink nicely and — bang, right on it! I set the hook and oh yeah, this is a good fish. I fight the fish up and see it’s a solid pike! I figure it needs to come out and go back in quickly, and I fight a bit harder than usual to get the fish into the net fast. A bit of folding to get her into the net, unhook, a few photos, and back into the water. But she doesn’t swim off right away. I grab her again by the gill plate and start paddling. After 15 minutes of cruising around and flushing a massive amount of water through the gills, she gave a hard slap with her tail and — poof — she was gone back down. Alright, that was a nice fish and that’s a lot of points! The momentum was suddenly back, because before that one fish I’d already wasted five hours cruising around and searching for active fish. At that point I still had a good hour of fishing time left and hadn’t caught a single zander yet. Time to switch to zander! At ten metres I saw a huge amount of big baitfish, but here and there some slimmer signals mixed in too. Fishing vertically with a slim shad on a 10 g Solid Weight Tungsten jighead, I managed to pull out one small zander of 47 cm. The rest weren’t interested that day. Time was up and I still had a good half hour of paddling back to make it into the harbour on time.

After day 1 I was in 13th place out of 50, which is certainly not bad, 100 points behind first place. That would still be hard to catch up.

Day 2 was a slightly different day — warmer, but also with a bit more wind. In the afternoon the temperature would reach 31°C, and that’s really not the weather in which you expect to catch a lot of fish. So I started the morning in a somewhat atypical way, first searching for zander in relatively shallow stretches of water, between 3-8 metres deep. After half an hour I already landed my first pelagic zander, 63 cm long. Not a bad start! That fish got the enthusiasm going again, and I started believing once more! A little further on, next to some moored boats, I came across a nice signal on the bottom. How do you know if you never try, so I cast at the signal. The shad drops past its back and the fish reacts immediately, comes off the bottom, follows, follows, follows… bang! Hooked up! A 70 cm zander. Yes, now that’s really a great start! A few hundred metres further there’s another perch zone, and since I’m nearby anyway, I figure I’ll take a look. Drifting along, I cast the KVD jerkbait along the edge. Suddenly I get a solid hit on the rod and feel a firm weight on the other end of the line. Pike? Or perch after all? If it’s a perch… I fight the fish closer and closer. It comes up for a moment and… a 50+ cm one!! Without stripes… damn, it’s an asp! Hooked square in the mouth on the rear treble though. Not what I was aiming for, but a cool catch nonetheless. After drifting a bit further, the search for perch that just won’t bite — or simply aren’t there anymore — comes to an end. The zone I was fishing had literally seen more than a hundred boats pass through in recent weeks. So it would honestly already be a miracle to catch anything there at all.

Back to the pelagic spot then. In the first half hour I found no fish above twelve metres. The weather probably had something to do with that. The forecast said it would blow a bit harder after noon, and I pinned my hopes on that expected breath of wind to loosen the fish up and get them hunting a bit more. From all the cruising around, I ended up near a nice piece of structure I’d passed by every day in previous days. Looking back, I have no idea how I could have missed this, because the moment I passed the structure with LiveScope… damn, it was PACKED with zander! From five metres deep all the way down, stacked one behind the other. At that point I really needed to catch at least one more zander, so I positioned the kayak to pass right alongside the structure with the lure in view of the LiveScope, so I could watch the fish’s reaction. For the first twenty casts, about half the time a fish would come along, only to turn tail after a minute and head back toward the structure. Once, notably with one of the biggest signals there, the fish followed for thirty metres away from the structure! Argh, frustrating. I started to doubt whether they were even zander, or something with a similar signal, like asp. But a group of asp positioning themselves that way in a spot with little current — I’d never heard of that. Okay, keep trying then. Cast after cast, follower after follower, no bite. And then I thought about maybe trying something smaller. And sure enough, the very next cast connected! A 65 cm zander in the net — the zander scorecard was full!

By now it was already a bit past noon, and I still had a good two hours left to catch a pike. Paddling away from the structure, something suddenly appeared on LiveScope… Holy… Are those two fish swimming against each other?? Two carp? No… that’s one pike. An absolute unit, almost “one and a half boxes” on the LiveScope, meaning a fish of at least 120+, maybe even 130+? She was swimming at a steady 3 km/h with the wind direction, left to right. In the spirit of “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I went after the fish. Passing by, turning, keeping the fish in view, repositioning and casting. I did this for a solid half hour, with every single lure I happened to be fishing with at the time, and unfortunately… not once did she show any sign of interest or intention to strike. Time to search for another pike then. You can’t catch them all! Half an hour later I found a new signal at eight metres deep, not overly large, but it did look like a pike. I drop, and bang, the fish was on almost instantly. It comes up and yes indeed, it’s a pike of around 70 cm! I grab the landing net, bring the pike closer and — ping — it comes loose!! Damn! Lost that one… Okay, no worries, I still had time to find another fish. Twenty minutes later I came across a big signal at nine metres deep. I drop my shad with the Hearty Rise Valley Hunter Pelagic and, as the shad still hangs three metres above the fish, it suddenly shoots up and — zoom! — right past it! No idea what got into that pike, but she immediately settled back on the bottom. No second chance there.

A little further on, at around nine to ten metres on a drop-off, I saw a few solid, hard round shapes on LiveScope. Perch? At that depth? Well, it’s possible… A Charlie’s Fishing Ned on a Solid Weights Tungsten Ned jig headed that way and — bang! A small zander of 45 cm. Huh, so not perch after all?

By then I only had 45 minutes left to paddle back to the harbour. That was already going to be tight, so I started heading back. On the way I managed to pick up one more zander of 62 cm, but it didn’t improve my score. Tired but satisfied, I made it into the harbour just in time.

After a very welcome slice of pizza, it was time for the prize ceremony. Exciting, because the live leaderboard had been switched off since noon. Personally I was very happy with my day — although it could have gone even better, my goal of filling the zander scorecard had gone well. And besides, I hadn’t heard of anyone who’d caught an even bigger fish than the pike I landed on day 1. Exciting — this could turn out to be a double win!

And sure enough, thanks to the three nice zander, I finished in 6th place and also took home the prize for the biggest fish of the tournament. Very tired but also very satisfied, we headed back home. See you next year, Kayakcentre Fishing Tournament!

This adventure would of course not have been possible without the hugely appreciated support of the best supporter ever, Pauline, Pieter from Predatorfishing.be, and Hans Roose from Anyware Fishing! Thank you!