“What excites me about this format is it’s truly open to everyone. There’s no membership fee and it doesn’t matter what kind of kayak you’re fishing out of. All you have to do is pay your entry and show up and you have this opportunity for not only a great payday, but also two different higher qualifications, one of those being the Hobie Fishing Worlds 9, the other being the Tournament of Champions, which is changing to a 50 angler format this season,” says McWhorter.
One kayak angler who is fishing the upcoming events is Guillermo Gonzalez, based out of Fort Worth, Texas. Gonzalez has some experience already on each body of water: “One thing that’s really impressive about the Hobie Bass Open Series this year is the excellent timing of each event. They timed each event perfectly for each body of water that we’re headed to. For example, we get to go to Lake St. Clair on opening week of bass season in Canada, and normally only the American side would be in play. Now, with both sides in play, we have a larger body of water with more fishable area for the tournament where the fish haven’t been touched for so long that the bite can be just out of this world. There are plenty of fish all over the lake and this makes it really conducive to really good kayak fishing because you don’t have to go very far to get on a really good smallmouth bite.”
Gonzalez continues: “Speaking to the event on Lake Fork, for the most part, the bass will all be done spawning; there’s going to be a lot of fish deep, a lot of fish shallow, and a lot of fish everywhere in between. For me to even have a prediction of how that tournament is going to be won, I feel like that’s nearly impossible because there will be so many ways to do well. It’s going to fish to a lot of anglers’ strengths, which will make it really cool to see what kind of pattern ends up winning that tournament.”
“I feel exactly the same way about Kentucky Lake. There are going to be fish shallow and deep. In a nutshell, it’s all just super exciting because Hobie timed all the events so well. I’m really excited to get out there!”
As far as how Gonzalez thinks the upcoming tournaments are going to play out, he cites the high quality of each lake as a big factor. “In my opinion, you couldn’t have picked three better bodies of water. There are going to be some really impressive weights.”