With 71 and 3/4 inches of smallmouth, Storm Carver claimed his first WV BASS Kayak State Championship, just a few inches ahead of second-place finisher Brian Butcher.
A change in the game plan was key for Carver’s victory, he basically threw out his practice on Friday which he spent most of the day in Battle Run and started fresh on Saturday morning.
“Checked on some usual spots (Friday), fished trees for a little while and the second set of trees I fished I caught an 18” largemouth and seen other fish on the trees in there too,” he said. “Then went looking for schools of smallmouth. Found a school stacked on a point in 8 to 12 feet of water on some bait, burned a crank bait through there, caught a 14 incher, marked them and bailed out.”
Although his practice sounded promising, he had went back to get dinner that night and decided to get on google map. He was looking to try to find similar places in McKees creek to fish.
“I knew there was going to be a lot more pressure on Saturday,” he noted. “Saturday morning I decided to give it a shot and start in McKees creek.”
That decision was met with some quick disappointment as he started off the morning with a big loss.
“Lost a 17 to 18 inch smallmouth right off the bat,” he said. “I kept it together, I knew I was around some fish now.”
After trying a few different spots, he decided he was going to go check on another school of fish he had found Friday. Carver settled on a Spro Rock Crawler and caught his first keeper that was about 12 3/4 inches. That school didn’t really pan out for him he would say.
“I managed to catch 3 more keeper fish on a walking bait early until the wind got too bad,” he said. “I picked up the dropshot and started dragging it around and caught a few non-keepers and then finished out my limit by about 9:30.”
“I started to head out to the main lake to find some bigger fish and I ended up losing a big one. Burning the crank bait, killed it, and bam she crushed it, started running out to deep water and just pulled right off.”
Even after losing that fish he knew was still in position to do well and had his limit filled, he decided to head back into McKees creek to fish some grass to give it another shot.
“I had around mid 60 inches around 1:30,” he said. “I made a cast up on the grass flat and caught a 15 1/4 inch smallmouth on a dropshot. Few casts later and I hook the biggest fish of the day, a 16 3/4 inch smallmouth.”
Carver ended up landing the fish after a wild fight which gave him a total of 71 1/4 inch worth of Summersville smallmouth.
Packing up at the ramp before heading to the Tractor Bar to be weighed-in he ran into fellow competitor Tim Isaacs who had a little bit tougher day. Tim and Storm talked back and forth of what they each had.
“I guarantee you won it with that,” Tim had told Storm.
“I got back to the Tractor Bar and started talking and seemed like everyone had a real rough day,” he said “I was starting to think maybe I actually did win this, now I was real nervous.”
Carver ended up edging out his friend Mikey Halcombe who finished in a respectable third place and Brian Butcher who would finish second with 69 1/2 inches.
Not only is this a big win for Carver, but this is an opportunity at the 2022 BASS Nation Kayak National Championship that will be held in conjunction with the 2022Bassmaster Classic! We asked him what this all means to him.
“I’m pumped up, it’s the Bassmaster Classic and that stage is what it means. It’s truly incredible. I’ve been very blessed this year and this was just the icing on the cake. Dreams do come true.”
