On April 27-28, 2024, the USA Kayak Fishing Team will host anglers on Lake Murray in South Carolina as they launch their kayaks in hopes of grasping one of six coveted roster spots available on the national team.
The short-term goal for the USA Kayak Fishing Team: build a national team to win the 2024 Pan-American Championship.
The long-term goal: make bass fishing an Olympic sport.
Who is to say the latter can’t be done? Only 10 years ago, the notion of sustained tournament bass kayak fishing on a national scale was regarded as improbable. But for the past five years, kayak anglers have walked across the biggest stages in the sport of bass fishing. For the past five years, USA BASS has worked with kayak bass anglers and industry leaders to develop USA Kayak Fishing into a competitive juggernaut. In fact, USAngling President Tony Forte notes on the organization’s website, the application process to the International Olympic Committee has already begun.
Could Kayak Fishing Go Olympic?
It’s a win-win situation for tournament kayak anglers. Even if the Olympics don’t approve, you can still represent your country in international competition. If you’ve ever watched the great Olympians represent your country in a sport, you’ve marveled at their achievement. The pride of wearing one’s flag at the podium, the weight of the medal, the roar of assembled nations. Olympic sports allow countries to dream as one, through one moment, one athlete. Ask any American of a certain age what it was like watching the U.S. men’s hockey team defeat the Soviet Union at Lake Placid in 1980 and they probably have to pause before they speak. The emotion is that raw, even after 40-plus years.
If you’ve ever imagined wearing your country’s flag at an international medal ceremony, Olympic or otherwise, the qualifying event at Lake Murray is your chance to dream big.
When USA Kayak Fishing recently announced it would hold the April event on Lake Murray, it also announced the event would add six new members to the team for the next international tournament, the Pan-American Championship, which will also be held at Lake Murray in September 2024.
I reached out to an actual Olympian—the only one who also fishes competitively from a kayak—to get his perspective on what it all means. Eric Jackson is the founder of Jackson Kayak and the founder and current owner of Apex Watercraft. He represented the United States of America as a member of the U.S. men’s whitewater slalom team at the 1992 Olympic Games, and he remains a member of the U.S. men’s freestyle team. Jackson is also an accomplished bass angler in his own right, and has placed in several kayak fishing tournaments.
He was a member of the first USA Kayak Fishing Team that won the Pan-American Championship in 2019. Of the national team experience, Jackson said, “Kayak fishing deserves to be recognized internationally, and it’s good to have the different national teams in contact with each other. There are formidable teams and the camaraderie is great. Fishing in Portugal [the 2022 World Championship venue] was beautiful even when the fishing was tough. And you get to wear the American flag on the team. It’s something to be really proud of, even if it isn’t an official Olympic event.”
How to Kayak Fish in the USA Team Qualifier
So, how does it work? In a Facebook post, USA Kayak Fishing wrote that it is “looking for the next wave of talent” to represent the United States of America in kayak fishing. Where in previous editions, USA Kayak Fishing fielded teams that were hand-picked from the top of the sport, anglers now compete for a spot on the team at an open event.
The top six finishers at Lake Murray will join three prequalified team anglers—Damian Thao, Rus Snyders and Cody Milton—to represent the United States of America. Thao, Snyders and Milton finished at the top of the field in the previous FIPSed World Championship, held in Tennessee in 2023. All nine team members will return to Lake Murray in September 2024 for the third Pan-American Kayak Fishing Championship.
Team USA, a World-Stage Powerhouse
The USA Kayak Fishing Team has been developing its roster, its organization and its logistical abilities to make sure it can compete against kayak fishing teams from around the world on the international stage. And it has done so successfully, fielding strong teams that have won medals at both the Pan-American Games and the FIPSed World Championship.
In fact, beginning with the 2019 Pan American Kayak Championship, the team has never failed to win medals in that event. USA Kayak Fishing hosted the 2019 championships and swept the gold medals in individual men’s and women’s categories and also the national team events. In 2022, when Mexico hosted the Pan-Am Championship, the team repeated the accomplishment.
The FIPSed Kayak World Championship is a less consistent story. In 2022, Team USA failed to medal as a team, placing fourth when the event was hosted by Portugal. Indiana angler Mike Elsea found some redemption for the team by bringing home the bronze medal in the individual category. But at the 2023 World Championship hosted by the United States, USA Kayak Fishing won gold in the team event and swept all three medal categories in the individual event, besting 12 combined nations that fielded teams. The next host for the FIPSed World Championship is Italy.
The Wide World of Kayak Fishing and the Olympic Dream
Portugal. Mexico. Italy. The United States of America. Where will you qualify to compete for your country? Lake Murray is where it could begin.
If history teaches us anything, it is that anything is possible. There’s a long history of mixed-sports being added to the Olympics. The men’s biathlon was added in 1960 (women’s biathlon was added in 1992). Men’s and women’s snowboarding made their Olympic debut in 1998. In 2026, ski mountaineering will make its first appearance at the games. Eric Jackson notes, “Sports get pulled out and added in, so it could happen.”
Perhaps kayak fishing will one day be represented among the Olympians. In the meantime, USA BASS and the USA Kayak Fishing Team have developed leadership, team culture and a winning tradition for competitive kayak fishing.
In fishing, we often say “go big or go home.” If you are a tournament angler, maybe it’s time to dream big and go to Lake Murray this April.
To register for the USA Kayak Fishing Team Qualifier on Lake Murray this April 27, 2024, visit:
usac.wildapricot.org/event-5553969 and enter code X75D16TE.
Hank Veggian is an avid kayak angler. A member of the Jackson Kayak Fishing Team, he also writes about kayak fishing for various magazines and websites. In his free time, he is an English professor at UNC Chapel Hill.
Feature Photo: Courtesy USAngling
