Kayak anglers who travelled to Ocala, Florida for the season opener of the Kayak Adventure Series presented by GoPro, were rewarded with warm weather and access to several of the top bass fisheries in the Southeast. And while the days were warm, the reception provided by the host city of Ocala, Florida and Marion County was even warmer. Anglers and their families enjoyed incredible fishing, fellowship, seminars, and food at the Opening Ceremonies, Bass U Bruch and Closing Ceremony festival and awards. Together, it showed why Ocala is a premier destination for outdoorsmen and women.
Most importantly for the anglers was of course the fishing. On Friday's 4-hours alone, those stellar Florida fisheries delivered not one but two bass that measured 24” or longer. On Saturday, several KAS records were set, with a new record century mark, the first-ever champion of Finman Fishing High School division, and an Ocala giant of a Largemouth "GoPro Big Bass." It was a phenomenal start to what is shaping up to be an amazing sophomore season for the Kayak Adventure Series.
With NuCanoe as the event’s official kayak sponsor, Ocalapalooza kicked off the 2025 season with all of the popular KAS tournament categories returning to competition. Back again are the Realtree Fishing Realtime leaderboard on TourneyX featuring the KastKing Individual Angler Division and its exciting NOCQUA Angler of the Year race. The same is true of the Torqeedo Team Division and its SMITH Optics Team of the Year [TMOY] race. The popular Z-Man Micro Finesse “Micro Bag” division, where the shortest five-fish limit wins, returns for the season too. As we saw in Ocala this weekend, finding small bass is a challenge in Florida!
A few new additions deserve attention. We already mentioned the new prize for the top High School Angler this year (and the Top Lady Angler, presented by the Women's Fishing Federation returns, too). The Go Pro guarantee adds big payouts for events that meet certain registration limits, while the GoPro Big Bass award (a new GoPro) is given to the angler who catches the biggest bass of the event. And of course, all the favorite prizes are back, too, including the Crosskix century belt (for anglers who catch 100” or more), the Omnia “Tackle for Trash” prize and the Day 2 dark horse presented by Dark Horse Tackle for the angler who makes the biggest move from day 1 to day two. Plus, a slew of other bonus programs from sponsors Including the NOCQUA Power Bonus ($1000), Toyota Bonus BONUS BUCKS, Top NuCanoe ownner, Crosskix Bonus, Omnia Pro Contingency Program that gives Omnia gift cards to the top Omnia Pro subscriber. Which, by the way is just $49/year but you'll get a $50 gift card to Omnia Fishing just for registering for Omnia Pro using code "KASPRO." Learn more about all the bonus programs here.
Fish with Kayak Adventure Series and your options are like your adventures: unlimited.
Ocalapalooza set the tone for the 2025 season, and while finding small Florida bass was a challenge, finding Florida giants was not. And because of that, the Crosskix century belt made an appearance for the first time since early 2024……
Torqeedo Individual Division
KAS competition begins with Friday’s “Afternoon Sesh,” a half-day sprint that sets up Saturday’s marathon. With slightly cooler temperatures on Friday, anglers in the Ocala area still found bites from the start of competition. Florida angler Alan Reed took the early lead after the first thirty minutes of fishing (Reed would finish the day in tenth place overall), while Florida’s Amy Brown put up the biggest bass in the early going, a nice 17” largemouth to take the early lead as Top Lady Angler.
A last hour flurry by Minnesota angler Jeff Nerison earned him a limit of 89.75” for the overall lead after Friday's 4 hours. He took advantage of the unique opportunity to fish an afternoon/evening bite in the popular KAS 1.5 day format as his biggest bass came with just 15 minutes left in the waning minutes of sunlight. That 24” beast of a Florida bass – precisely the sort of bass you drive from Minnesota to Florida in order to catch -- would prove to be crucial for Nerison. Would that fish hold up and win the GoPro Big Bass? It wasn’t even the big bass of the day – a 25” monster landed by Florida angler Derick Simpers on Friday took that honor. It was not only Simpers personal best (PB) but it was Simpers very first kayak tournament ever, and his first catch in the tournament! That's an incredible way to start your tournament career right there! It weighed 9.13lbs, but we can see a little tail touching the Ketch board so we're going to call it an even 10lber! \
Seth Taylor, Rus Snyders, Blake Abbey and Tim Isaacs rounded out the top five behind Nerison, setting up a strong field for Saturday’s full day of competition.
The Saturday bite started out a bit slower than expected, but as the day warmed so did the hungry fish. By mid-morning, Friday leader Jeff Nerison culled up to 91.25”, but was passed for first place by Florida angler Darrell Harrelson who had a bag of 96.50” by 10 a.m. including a 24.75 8.4lber!
Seth Taylor and Tim Isaacs also improved their standing, with Taylor moving into the number two spot around lunchtime.But by mid-day on Saturday, Harrelson had found some of those Florida giants that had lit up Friday’s leaderboard. Within the span of two hours, Harrelson culled twice to improve his early limit’s length by 10.5”, to a total of 107” overall. When you are in the lead and then average 5.25” per cull, you’re going to be hard to catch.
But when you are fishing in Florida...anything can happen.
The anglers behind Harrelson got to work as more anglers approached the 90” threshold or crossed it. Perennial threat Rus Snyders culled up to 89”, Richard White III posted 90.75”, Jeff Nerison culled up to 95.75” in third place and Seth Taylor moved up to 97.25. With a few big culls of their own, any angler in the top five might catch Harrelson….And an angler named Christopher Bailey was quietly trying to do just that as his uploads came in late and created a "little" drama on stage.
In the end, Harrelson’s record-setting day proved insurmountable for Bailey and the rest of the field. Nerison had a great finish after a long drive from Minnesota. He told the awards crowd that he has made the trip annually for the past eight years, and this year he left behind temperatures that were “30 or 40 below with the wind chill when I left.” Remarking on the late day bite that produced some of his best fish, Nerison added “It was cool. I don’t think I had ever fished until sunset before.” Nerison finished with 95.75” for fourth place.
The 24” Largemouth was Nerison’s personal best. He told KAS on Sunday that he is “pretty new to the sport. But two years ago I was down in Tampa, fishing in the Hillsborough River. I caught a big one. I didn’t have a bump board, but I think it was a 23” or 24”. It weighed over six pounds.” Nerison caught the fish on a Elite Evo chatterbait tipped with a Z-Man Bama Craw. He told KAS:
“It was my last cast of the day. It was getting pretty dark. I went by a set of pads for the last time and that’s where I caught it.”
Seth Taylor and Christopher Bailey both made runs at the top spot on Saturday. Taylor finished in third overall. At the awards, he said “My pattern was pretty unique…. A lot of the bass that I was on were in the tilapia beds in 5-6’ of water. And I think they wanted to spawn, but with the colder temperatures they would just pull into the bed, the females and some males, and as long as I would get [the lure] in the bed, they would be aggressive, but as soon as I got it out of the beds they would just leave.”
Taylor finished with a 97.25” limit, which was bested by .25” by Christopher Bailey who made a strong, late push. Bailey began his remarks by thanking the Kayak Adventure Series for working with Florida Kayak Bass Trail and the Florida B.A.S.S.Nation Kayak Series to plan Ocalapalooza. Bailey caught his big bites on a jig later in the day, and nearly lost his anchor fish. “What happened this afternoon was crazy. I had two fish on the board at twelve o’clock….I thought it came off [in the reeds]…I should have been in the water, and I pulled this fish out and I think everyone on the lake heard me screaming and yelling.” Sounds like fate to us, as Bailey and Harrelson are great friends and were fishing near one another. So close that at one point when Bailey wasn't catching them and just figured his chances were slim he started photographing and filming his friend's epic day on the water. It shows the kind of person Bailey is to do that for his friend, but what is more impressive is that this would be Bailey's last time on the water in Florida for quite some time. The Tampa area resident is explained he was moving to North Dakota the Monday after the event. Call it destiny, or call it fate, but you can't script stuff like this in sports, as he finally began fishing again he too started catching them and even though he never caught up to Harrelson, it was a moment the friends will never forget on his last days in Florida as a resident.
Darrell Harrelson’s 107” limit held up against the final push. His anchor fish was a 24.75” monster – the third longest landed at the event. The bass weighed 8 pounds, four ounces, and it was one of several big fish he landed after adjusting his strategy. As he told the audience at the awards: “In pre-fishing we found them in this one area. I had a 23.5”…and followed that up with another five pounder; today, I went back to that spot and went south.”
Harrelson won the first-place money ($4000) and additional $500 in prizes, and trophy for his record limit. He also won a coveted Crosskix century belt and set the new record at 107 inches for 5 KAS bass.
As Drew Gregory told Harrelson at the awards: “We weren’t sure someone would catch you. But this is Florida, and when Eric Jackson caught that fish later in the day, and if anyone in second or third place would have caught one of those and a nice solid 21”, they would have passed you. It was there to happen…”
For more about “that fish” that Eric Jackson caught, read on…
Torqeedo Team Division
Teams of two anglers each compete against other teams in the Kayak Adventure Series Torqeedo Team Division. Each individual angler posts his or her five best fish, and the team’s ten best fish comprise the team total.
Nine teams registered for the Torqeedo Team Division at Ocalapalooza and all nine posted at least one fish on Friday. Friday’s team leaderboard had Travel Country Outfitters team on the top line, as the team was set up by the fact that its members Seth Taylor and Blake Abbey each finished in the top five of the individual leaderboard. Behind them were Snyders/Baker in second place, followed by Team FISH-I (Tim Isaacs and his son Jason).
While Friday’s team leaderboard was busy, it was nothing compared to Saturday’s volatility. Within only two hours of fishing, Snyders/Baker closed the gap, jumping to second place, and only 7.5” from the lead. FISH-I also posted keepers and moved up, while the OG River Champs Lance Coley and Tim Perkins reminded everyone that they were in the race after having a strong 2024 season.
Within two hours, Fish-I had moved into second place, closing to within 3” of the overall lead. A mere 6.5” separated third place from first. But that’s when Seth Taylor made his move on the individual leaderboard. His culls lifted the Travel Country Outfitters Team to 180.25” overall. In the meantime, FISH-I and Snyders-Baker battled for second place, with only 1.25” separating the two at mid-day. That distance closed to 1” as the leaderboards went dark prior to lines out.
In the end, Snyders-Baker passed team FISH-I, making the battle for second place an exciting one. As Team FISH-I member Tim Isaacs said at the awards ceremony: “The experience is always good when you come to Florida this time of year.” FISH-I placed third with 169.5”
Team Snyders-Baker placed second with 170.5”. When discussing the KAS event at the awards ceremony, team member Steve Baker was wearing his Autism Anglers hat. When discussing the KAS charity work for Autism awareness in 2025, he told the crowd “I have my youngest, who is autistic, and I appreciate everything you do.”
Snyders later said that “I had a blast. Me and Steve worked really well together. He’s a fun guy to fish with and hang out with, and we really learned a lot from each other.”
Team Travel Country Outfitters took first place with a dominant run, finishing with a total limit of 186.75”. Team member told the crowd at the Reilly Arts Center: “The event is awesome. I hope people watching this, and all national people start coming, [in order to] get more people and to come to Florida more.”
Seth Taylor later told KAS:
“Blake and I wanted to win the team event for Travel Country, our sponsor which is based in central Florida. We wanted the victory for them, but we are each competitive. We each picked a body of water we were comfortable on. We essentially eliminated water. And then I had a good day. I brought Blake and he did pretty well, but he also had another lake in mind. We went to different lakes, and through process of elimination we had two lakes. We fished the same lake on day one and on day two we fished separate lakes. We work well together as a team, and we didn’t get on each other’s areas. We respected each other’s fish, and shared information. We are competitive in that we want to win against the field but we also want to see each other do well.”
GoPro Big Bass Bling Award
Eric Jackson should not require introduction, but in case you didn’t know: he is an Olympian in white water kayaking, the renowned founder of the Jackson Kayak company and current owner of Apex Watercraft. If that weren’t enough of a resumé, he is also an accomplished tournament angler (in both power boats and kayaks).
Add to that list that he is now the owner of the record for the longest bass landed in kayak Adventure Series competition.
As noted previously, Jeff Nerison and Derick Simpers landed bucketmouths measuring 24” or longer in Friday’s Afternoon Sesh, and Darrell Harrelson landed another on Saturday. But Eric Jackson's monster bass topped the list of Ocala giants when he caught a 25.5” bass on Saturday.
Jackson, who finished 15th overall, told the crowd at the Reilly Arts Center:
“That was a fun fish to catch, as you can imagine. In two days of fishing my biggest [bass] was 15”. In practice I lost one that was close to that big [as the 25.5”], it was huge. I told anyone I talked to yesterday that I would either get 73”, 83”, 93” or 103”, it all would depend on how many of the big bites I get.”
Jackson continued: “It’s 1:30 and I am tired of going slow to get the bigger bites, so I finally started burning a Strike King Swinging Swim Jig on top of the lily pads. I was ripping it up and boom! It was unbelievable. Where did that come from?”
Jackson then recounted how he had not seen another kayaker for two days, but one showed up when he landed the big bass. The fish was flipping in his kayak and making noise as Jackson tried to measure it, and Jackson said of the other kayaker that “he thought I fell out of my boat.”
For his accomplishment, Jackson won a Go Pro Hero 13 Black camera, a new Bending Branches paddle and the KAS Big Bass Bling medal.
Z-Man Micro Finesse “Micro-Bag” Tournament
Last season, the Micro bag Division sponsored by Z-Man proved to be a sleeper hit. Anglers enjoyed its unconventional format and the respite it provided from the standard competition. That isn’t to say it wasn’t challenging – the competition was fierce.
Florida added another layer of challenge: how do you locate smaller bass in a state renowned for its giant fish? As Drew Gregory asked at the awards: “How in the world do you catch a 9.75” and under, in Florida, in February? I don’t know.”
As if to answer that question, not a single eligible bass was scored during Friday’s Afternoon Sesh. All day long, the leaderboard was silent. Surely, someone would turn one of those 0” marks into a little green fish to win the winner-take-all cash?
Right?
But all day long, the board was quieter than a bullfrog in the snow. It was all zeroes at 8 a.m., and again at mid-morning. Noon, and not a fish was posted.
It turns out that one savvy angler did decide to "switch gears" and focus on the micro-bag - John Dalton. He landed not one, but two bass for a total limit of 16.75”. His time in the KastKing Individual Division wasn't going so well and Dalton remembered that he always signs up for the Micro-bag division (he's a previous winner too) so he changed the game plan with just enough time to get it done.
Dalton also proved that when you fish in Florida, finding a big bag of bass isn’t as much of a challenge as finding a Z-Man Micro Finesse Micro-Bag. He told the crowd
“This is my third KAS, and in the other two it was easy to get five. I fished an hour and a half for small fish, and caught about ten sunfish. I caught one [small bass] by accident and the other on a Rooster Tail.”
Dalton won $250 for first place, and the Micro Bag Micro Belt Buckle for his hard-fought win.
Top Lady Angler presented by Women’s Fishing Federation
The Top Lady Angler prize rewards the women who compete and finish strong. Sponsored by the Women’s Fishing federation, an organization devoted to increasing the profile of women who kayak fish, the Top Lady Angler prize recognizes female anglers who represent kayak fishing at the highest level.
Amy Brown of Lake Helen, Florida won first place overall in this division. Her total limit was 79”, which bested fellow Floridian Wendy Biles by 2.25”. Brown began fishing at Orange Lake on Friday, where but decided to change plans. She told the crowd at the awards: “I switched today to Rodman. I started really slow about mid-day, and I found pads that were loaded with fish and finally got my limit.”
Top High School Angler presented by Finman Fishing
The new division in the Kayak Adventure Series invites younger kayak anglers to compete in our sport. And if they perform well in competition, Kayak Adventure Series recognizes them with awards and prizes.
The opening chapter for the Top High School Angler prize was a memorable one, with strong competition and a close finish. Payten Grey took home the third place medal, while Ohio angler Josiah Bihary won first place by besting Georgia’s Silas Baker, who won the second place medal, by 4.25”.
Bihary won with a total limit of three fish for 47.5”. Bihary told the crowd that “during practice, I caught my PB, a six pounder. I caught it punching, and went back to that area today and caught that 18” in the first hour.” With that comment, Bihary added another personal best to the long list of them that were landed at Ocalapalooza.
Autism Anglers Charity Raffle
Kayak Adventure Series raised $800 for Autism Anglers at Ocalapalooza. In one of the ceremony’s more memorable moments, Landon, son of Autism Anglers founder Don, drew the first of the two raffles. The first was for the Autism Anglers swag pack, the second for a NuCanoe kayak. Huge thanks to NuCanoe, and it's founder and president Blake Young for showing up and helping with the event, and to one of NuCanoe's top dealers - Beach Basement Kayaks - for showing up and showing off some great NuCanoe's!
Looking Ahead
The Kayak Adventure Series will be at Paris, Texas for a special one-day shootout event on March 23rd! For more info: https://www.kayakadventureseries.com/paris-reelfest
Additional Info
For more information about the Kayak Adventure Series presented by Go Pro, visit: https://www.kayakadventureseries.com/
To watch the awards ceremony, click here.
Click here to learn more about Go Pro cameras.
Click here for complete Individual Event standings from Ocalapalooza.
Click here for complete Team Event standings from Ocalapalooza.
Click here for complete Micro Bag Event standings from Ocalapalooza.
© 2025 Kayak Adventure Series. All Rights Reserved. First published February 23, 2025.