Yak Tribe Tournament Results

The summer Yak Tribe tournament has wrapped up and the results are in. It was a hard fought battle to the very end with some lead changes on the final day. When the dust settled, only 2.5 inches separated first place from third place.

1. Matt Embree  219 3/4”
2. Justin Johnston  218”
3. Kevin Tippett  217 1/4”
4. Katie Richards  209 1/4”
5. Chris Lender  196 1/4”
6. Garett Richards  192 1/2”
7. Josh Loescher  189 3/4”

8. Steve Roberts  187 3/4”

Unfortunately, I came up short in my attempt to repeat as champion. It wasn't for lack of effort on my part. I fished hard right up until the final hour and caught several great fish over the course of the month. My biggest fish actually came with less than 2 hours left to go in the tournament which added to the excitement. I thought I had a chance to win it at that point. 

Before heading out to fish that day, I turned in my big fish that I had caught earlier in the tournament. I waited until the final day because I knew it would be close and I didn't want my competition to know the score they had to beat. At that time, I thought I was in the lead by 3/4". It wasn't until the tournament director messaged me around 5pm that I knew it wasn't going to be good enough.

He messaged me to remind me to look at the rules in the event there was a tie. Sure enough, when I checked the leaderboard again, I saw that I was in a first place tie with Kevin Tippett. Since Kevin had the biggest fish between us, he held the tie breaker. At that point, I still had 7 hours to fish so I knew I had a chance to improve my score. It was a tough day of fishing though. The bites were few and far in between. Finally at 10:20pm, the big one took the bait. When I got it to the kayak, it was a 38 3/4" blue which was big enough to replace the 38" fish I had previously turned in. With the tie broken, I rushed home to submit the fish before the deadline. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person fishing in those final hours. Matt Embree had been on the water as well and had caught a huge largemouth bass to bring his final score up another 3 inches. That was enough for him to leapfrog me and Kevin to take first place.

Overall the tournament went exactly as I thought it would. I said in my intro video, I thought the people at the top of the leaderboard would have maxed out their slot fish and it would basically boil down to the two biggest fish taking it. The fact I was able to get 141.25" of the possible 144" for the slot portion of this tournament was the only reason I was able to hang with these saltwater guys. 

Though I would have loved to have won, I accomplished my main goal which was finishing high enough to win another one of the Leviathan rods that were being offered in the prize pool. I also won several other great prizes and some cash which I will go over in my tournament recap video. That video will be posted after I receive all the prizes. Be on the lookout for it in a few weeks. Thank you to all of you who have followed along and wished me well in this tournament. I appreciate all the encouragement and positive feedback I have received.