Sunset Bay AOTD Kayak Fishing Challenge(final Results)

The 5th annual Sunset Bay Angler Of The Day Kayak Fishing Challenge is in the books!

As usual the conditions were dicey!, the second worse ever but 40 brave souls were determined to make the best of a bad situation. All anglers made a go of it and i am very proud of you guys for at least venturing out into dense fog and high swells and testing your limits and learning from that. everyone came bac...k safe and we had zero incidents. Thanks for looking out for each other out there, you guys are my heroes!.

I just want to thank the sponsors again for all there generous donations. We had alot of stuff to give away and went into three rounds of chip draws to give it all away! awesome!! with your help and the epic generosity of the Anglers and their families, we were able to raise $1,100 for the Heroes On The Water organization, with it being split between the Northwest and Portland chapters. This makes me so proud of you guys and honored to call you all my friends!

Again, thanks to all for making the trip. To Art, the inspiration, I just hope i can be out there doing what you do when i'm your age!, you are the man!

Thanks to Adrienne, Robert and Martin for making the trio up from Cali, hope you plan to come back and drag some of your fellow anglers with you.

And thanks to Dana for cooking the fish, Rick for helping prep it and Josh for running. To any one else that helped that i forgot , thank you too! We had a great spread of food, thanks to all that brought the great eats!

Special Thanks to Richard Walter(WR) and Scott Brewer(surf12foot) for donating some stuff for the captains bags, thanks guys!

Ok, here are the final results!

1. Dana Hilden 397.25 points
2. Steve Hatler 266.0 points
3. James Crumpton 254.25 points
4. Evan Merz 253.25 points
5. Craig Campbell 248.875 points
6. Dustin Baum 244.25 points
7. Paul Walker 242.50 points
8. Chris Hyde 240.0 points
9. Erik Schmidt 227.375 points
10. James Case 206.125 points
11. Scott Brewer 148.0 points
12. Sherman Case 139.50 points
13. Robert Bray 130.50 points
14. Steve VanDyke 129.50 points
15. Sean Robertson 113.75 points
16. Richard Thaxton 110.25 points
17.Dale Nelson 84 points

Want to recognize the rest of the anglers who unfortunately didn't get a fish but are still winners for venturing out into the fray!

Justin Wesson
Art Hilts
Laurren Smith
Christine Smith
Josh Rogers
Rick Spencer
Martin Bennett
James Tonik
Andrew Insinga
Tim Hofer
Eric Flath
Paul Horton
Alan Boschee
Dave Mason
Shannon Anderson
Adrienne Tindal
Tim Flora
Paul Demers
Anthoney Stickel
Bob Thompson
Kerry Holman

I had an awesome time and hope to see you all here next year. Lots of pics to come, stay tuned!

Thanks all!

Congratulations Dana!

Thanks Roy and Dudi! SBAOTDC is always so fun and well worth the drive down, even if our luck on the surf forecast hasn't been the greatest. The South Coast Crew knows how to throw a party. Thanks from everyone at HOW for all your support down there guys, and thanks to Kayak Shed for the awesome HOW raffle prizes.

I was feeling a little rough, but here's a pic of Roy passing the bucks to HOW OR!

11th place, not bad for a guy fly fishing! WOOO-HOOO.................

What a fun weekend!  Only in the company of friends can you have the kind of trip I had this last week.  Thank you to Roy and Dudi for working so hard to make this happen.  A list of sponsors that long and a couple of tables full of prizes don't mysteriously appear by accident, and with a Hobie Outback as the Grand Prize this was a class event.  Even I was able to bring home some fun stuff.  It's also very cool that the tournament raised $1100.00 for a great cause like Hero's on the Water.  I thought it was an impressive tournament.

Congradulations on the win Dana!  Thanks for the salmon fishing excoursion Friday too.  Nice chinook!

Thanks Wobbler - Steve -  for all the ideas and technical help on how to make my trailer into the type of kayak hauler you have.  Congradulations on also catching fish in some very challenging conditions ( I got skunked ).

Thanks INSAYN and Ling Ling Herro for helping me out on Friday and making sure I got back safe.  I really appreciate you guys looking out for me.

Put me down for next year, and the year after.  I plan on being a regular at this tourny for a long time.  I can't imagine being part of a nicer group of people.  I hope to see you all next year!

Roy, that was was one seriously great time.  What a way to spend my birthday weekend. 
Thanks for letting me crash my junk in your yard for the weekend.


Game day...
The ocean conditions were poor at best, extremely sporty and really hard to on the body. 
Trying to get out of the bay I was greeted with 6 foot swells with 8-10 foot rogue rollers. 
Some with white cap breaks on top!   And these swells were inside of 6 seconds. 
Then there was the 2.5-3 MPH West bound current out of the bay. 
This made it very tiring to get back into the bay having to pump hard against the current on roller coaster grounds.

So, glad I went back out after a quick coffee/lunch pick me up, and rod re-rigging.  The only bite all day for me was my double in the nasty foggy swells right after going back out. 


Food was great!  Lots of tasty salads, desserts, and fried fish. 

Dana did a bang up job frying the fish bits to golden perfection, oh and completely cleaning up on the prizes! 
He can almost open up a kayak and tackle store just on what he won Saturday.   
Way to go, bro! 

Again, Roy............ Totally epic event, your sponsors should be proud of your layout, HOW will be well supported with all the generous bucks thrown in to the raffle jar, and you and Dudi can catch up on some sleep and get in some good fishing now that successful 2014 AOTD is behind you. 

Can't wait till next year.

Happy birthday Insayn , thanks for the fun day fishing Roy next year when you pick the date for the tournament and get it all posted up , we are all going to take a vote to change it to the weekend before or after! I had a blast and first time getting skunked in the ocean. I hope to do it again next year (I love a good roller coaster) and will try to make it down between now and then so I can actualy see the area I'm fishing in. Thanks to every one that made this happen, all the great sponsors, and all the guys and gals that showed up to try and fish.

Thank you Roy for putting on an excellent tourney. I had an good time and plan on being there next year. NWKA is full of awesome people always willing to help each other out and who know how to cook some GREAT food. Thank you again for putting this on. Also, that prize table was huge, you definitely have some generous sponsors.

Some pics from Saturday:

Many thanks to Roy and Dudi for putting on another great Sunset Bay AOTD Kayak Fishing Challenge. Of course the word "Challenge" applied to this tournament, just as it has in all the past events! Besides the swells, current, and fog, there was a solid 10-15 mile an hour north wind to contend with. I went out on Friday and the conditions were perfect. Thinking it would be nice like Friday, I didn't layer under the dry suit, and froze my butt off. Needless to say, I didn't stay out very long, and didn't catch anything. Still, riding the waves was fun in itself!

The potluck was the best ever, with tons of fish and food. Thanks to everyone who helped, and especially to Dana for frying up some tasty fish.

The prize drawing and HOW raffle had so many great prizes, and even though I didn't catch a thing, I still went home with a nice rod and reel from Cabelas. Thanks to all 23 of the sponsers, and also to the individuals who donated prizes. This was a totally epic event!

I am already looking forward to getting down to Sunset Bay again. To me, it's the best spot to fish. No power boats to contend with, no surf launch, just perfect! Here's a couple of pics from the tournament, and the rest are from Friday.

Well everyone's said it better than me already, but this was a really good event in spite of the conditions. What a great group of people to fish with and eat with and enjoy a campfire with. I especially appreciate Roy and Ling Ling Herro?'s hospitality. The world-class scenery and fishing of the Coos Bay area is complimented by world-class resident fishermen.

I'll be back.

Oh yeah, and awesome prizes! Really incredible job getting all of that together. And congrats to Dana... what a weekend for him!

Congrats Dana and everyone who went. Looks like fun and Insayn always tries to get me to go. Maybe next year!

Low tide and fogged in..



not a power boat to be seen anywhere.



The loot!



The sponsors!



ist place



2nd place



3rd place



Top 5



A great group of hardy kayak anglers

lots more pics here:

http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;cat=431;u=191