USAngling national qualifier San Diego

Hi guys, just wanted to put some info out there for the upcoming USAngling Saltwater regional qualifier in San Diego in August. The ORC has been made a regional qualifier and it the first step in the ladder to make it to the US team. I am not part of the planning of either the ORC or the USAngling thing but just a participant.

Last year the top 10 placers in the ORC were invited to fish in the National qualifier in San Diego August 15 and 16th. Same deal as the regional, if you place in the top 10 then I believe you make it onto the US National Saltwater kayak fishing team and can compete against other countries, in other countries.

I think this is an attempt to gain popularity and credit for kayak fishing and to eventually try to submit it as an Olympic sport.

There will be 5 of us from last years ORC that will be fishing in the SD event. I don't have any illusions of placing very high especially against anglers that call SD bay their home waters and live withing minutes of the venue but I'll give'er hell.

Myself, Hong Long, Kristie Cronin, Chris Williams, and Nick Piatek (Cali).

The fish will be submitted through an app similar to bass tournaments and I believe you will be able to follow along and watch submissions in real time. I will try to find more info if I can and post up.

Here is the site the has the rules and other info and might be where you can see submissions but I am not sure.

https://fishinginitiative.org/

Good luck Jed. Too bad it can't be live streamed somehow

Good luck Jed. Too bad it can't be live streamed somehow

Thanks Evan, I will see if there is some kind of streaming that someone will be doing. We will be going down early and I think there is a function on Wednesday so hopefully there will be some info there.

Just got back from the USA Saltwater Kayak Fishing National qualifier in San Diego and will be making a couple posts about the trip.

This one is of all of the species that I caught while down there. Here you go Evan Merz 😆

Pre Fished with team PNW for 5 days and tried to at least find a pattern and eliminate dead spots in the Bay because it is a huge fishery.
 
Got lucky and found the bonefish fairly early on Monday. My 3rd, 4th, and 5th fishes of the trip that I got were bones so we were able to starts making a game plan for the week. Hong got into them as well so we were feeling better about the situation.

The fishing was pretty incredible and the weather was a dream. The amount of people was overwhelming. I had to cut and run out of the Trader Joes and wait outside for Hong because of how crowded it was in there😆

Placement post coming soon.

Let me know if you have any questions about the tournament and I will do my best to answer them.

Species:

1 Small Bonefish
2 Corvina
3 Corvina toofs
4 Black Croaker
5 Mackerel
6 Barred Sand Bass
7 Needle fish
8 Spotted Sand Bass

Species continued

9 Barracuda
10 Kelp sand bass/Calico
13 Spotfin Croaker

Pepper Park launch

Friday Captains meeting

I want to thank Hong and his family for the hospitality and support that they all have shown me on this trip. Without this, I probably would not have taken this trip to San Diego and competed in the USAngling National qualifier to try and make it onto Team USA.

We arrived in San Diego not knowing anything about the bay's fishery and had 5 days to form a plan. I am sure we were heavy underdogs for this event as none of us had been to the area before and there were some of the best anglers from all over the country playing for a top 10 spot. Every competitor was a top angler from their region and all of them had the ability to win this event.

 Each day the PNW team gathered new information and started forming a plan for game day. Our pre fish days were so so but we did eliminate many areas that we were not going to fish for the event.

Each morning starting from Monday at 6 o'clock we were greeted by my favorite regional team from Texas. These guys were super friendly and always took the time to see if we need help or anything in general. It was awesome watching a team working together towards a goal and having fun together on the water. Meeting these anglers and others from teams Hawaii and California (plus the lone ranger from North Carolina) made the whole trip worth it.

Day 1 we had a plan and sticked to it. We knew we had to try and gain as many points on day one to have any chance of placing in the top half of the field because our pre fishing on the front bay was weaker than the back. We did well in finding species that we could not during practice and everyone ended up in great positions at the end of day one. I was in 3rd place only 4 points behind the leader. Hong was close behind at 8th followed closely by Kristie and Chris.

Day 2 was going to be a challenge but we did have a solid plan. I stared off catching a few fish but it was not on fire. As the day progressed I started to panic and when I got chased out of my afternoon spot by a large lady in a metal boat with a 50 cal pointed in my direction, my plans went to crap. I tried chasing fish for 2 hours traveling miles. If I had settled down and followed the plan like Kristie and Chris I would have probably won the whole thing as they had found a huge school of bonefish (14points each) that were biting like piranhas.

In the end Chris placed 4th, Kristie 6th, Me 7th, and Hong just out of the money at 16th. One of our Cali wild card guys also made the cut in 10th place rounding out the anglers that qualified for Team USA.

Congrats to local angler Chad on the tie breaker win over Tommy from Team Texas, and Kauai boy Giorgio in 3rd.

Team PNW also surprised everyone by winning the team event by about 50 points.

The top 10 now become Team USA and are invited to fish against other countries in Italy next year.

Thanks again to everyone that put this event together, FISH Initiative, Kayak Vault/Hooked/Nick Piatek,  Boogie D, and so many others. Hope to do it again some day.