Kayak Wars 2013 Results

The 2013 Kayak Wars competition started on the 1st of February and ended on the 14th of December. It was the first year that European kayak anglers could submit teams and compete in the Kayak Wars. I formed a team comprising of Elliot, Kieren and myself under the name of West Cornwall Kayakers! 

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The competition runs on a fairly simple and basic concept of photographing the fish you catch against a measuring board and then submitting these photos online. A very good competition concept for catch and release fishing as the fish can be returned straight after a quick photo. Each species has a minimum & trophy length and fish above these lengths earns you 10 or 50 points respectively. All you need to fish in the kayak wars competition are: 2 other team members, a measuring device (tape measure or dedicated fish measurer), a camera and a means of uploading photos to the kayak wars website i.e. a computer. Team members can be those who you regularly fish with or just fellow kayak anglers from somewhere else in Europe! 

I use 2 means of measuring my fish - one is a fish measuring sticker stuck to a flat piece of perspex for measuring flatfish and ray, the other is a fish measuring sticker stuck to a piece of gutter pipe - this is used for round fish as this holds them much better for taking a photo.

Even though the competition started on the 1st of February none of us actually got out on the kayak until the 20th of May with the last trip of the season on November the 16th, managing 17 trips in this time. My team caught 196 fish that were long enough to count for points and these covered 22 species with an average points per catch of 20.83. This amounted to 4000 fish points giving us 3rd place in the combined freshwater/saltwater European section!!

Individual results:

Liam Faisey: 

• 6th in europe, 2nd in UK with 2270 points for 129 fish covering 21 species with a catch average of 21.47 points. 
• 5th in Europe + Australia section, 1st in UK for total length of all fish with 5633cm of fish submitted.
  
• 12th out of all kayak wars competitors (USA, Canada, Australia, Caribbean & Europe) for Kayak Man Gold Points awarded for multiple species catches in one day, number of species caught along with other accomplishments.

Elliot Parker:

• 9th in Europe, 3rd in UK with 850 points for 37 fish covering 14 species with a catch average of 22.97 points.
• 14th in Europe + Australia section for total length of all fish caught with 1487cm of fish submitted.

Kieren Faisey:

• 13th in Europe with 380 points for 26 fish covering 8 species with a catch average of 14.62 points.

We all enjoyed fishing the kayak wars competition and cant wait for next year when hopefully more teams will take part. Kieren wasn't able to get out on the kayak so much (too busy chasing girls!!) but still managed some decent catches. Elliot and myself went whenever time and conditions allowed us too and hopefully next year will all be able to get out more and score more points! 

We all caught some cracking fish - Elliot managed some lovely flatfish and caught his first ever ray - a blonde of 10lb (50cm wingspan). Kieren managed a monster Blonde Ray of 23lb 9oz (71cm wingspan) and my most memorable catches of the year were a Conger of 20lb (155cm long), a Blonde Ray around 18lb (66cm wingspan) and a Small Eyed Ray of 9lb 11oz (60cm wingspan). We had a few fun sessions catching Haddock and Whiting from deep water and towards the end of the year had a couple of awesome sessions fishing for ray! Below are a few photos of the bigger/better fish we had over the year:

12lb & 18lb Blonde Rays for me - 61cm & 66cm wingspans

Blonde Ray of 15lb - 65cm wingspan

Small Eyed Ray of 9lb 11oz - 60cm wingspan

20lb Conger measuring 155cm

Elliots first ever ray around 10lb - 50cm wingspan

Kierens 23lb 9oz Blonde Ray - 71cm wingspan

Elliot with a nice Turbot around the 4lb mark - 45cm length

Elliot with a nice Brill - 44cm length

Well done to the Dutchies on coming 1st in the team section and to Daniel for coming 1st individually - a close second for Graham Smith though!!

Results:

Europe Region Teams
The Dutchies 14480
The optimists 7740
West Cornwall Kayakers 4000
The Dogs Pollacks 3420
belgium pikepirates 2250
PikeZilla 1070
AKA 730
The Plastic Sturgeons 680
Viskayaks.nl 560
The Amigos 480
The Head 210

Complete Total Centimeters
Salt & Freshwater (Top 10) Europe & Australia
Graham Smith 22514.60
daniel 15479.00
jakbass 10196.00
Leo 7424.00
Fisherman Faisey 5633.00
Anto 4795.00
manchesterangler 4245.00
JohnSorrell 3975.50
belgiumkayakvisser 3654.00
BassZilla 2786.00

Europe Region Angler Standings (Top 10)
daniel 6490
Graham Smith 6350
jakbass 4310
Leo 3680
manchesterangler 3330
Fisherman Faisey 2770
belgiumkayakvisser 1880
Anto 1230
Fisherman Parker 850
BassZilla 720

Well done to everyone who fished and to Rob Appleby-Goudberg for setting up Kayak Wars in Europe this year. Graham Smith has now taken over the running of the competition and i sure he will do a great job of keeping the competition running well. The 2013 kayak wars has been great fun with plenty of nice catches and plenty of good friendly competition between the anglers (some interesting banter too!!). I look forward to fishing against everyone next year and seeing everyones catch reports - bring on the 2014 Kayak Wars!!!