It started as an idea; we wanted a tournament somewhere in the New York metro area to help promote kayak fishing. So we agreed to start and support a kayak fishing tournament somewhere in the NY metro area. As many of you know getting to the water isn’t easy in and around New York City. Besides access we needed a place that could handle a lot of people. We knew the event if done properly would attract a lot of participants in ensuing years.
The first thing we had to come up with was either a location or a format. We wanted the tournament to evolve into an event that promoted kayak fishing and felt a centralized location would be best. This way the participants would get the opportunity to meet others much more easily. There was only one place I felt fit these needs; Jamaica Bay. J Bay as we call it is a tremendous body of water that’s especially well suited to kayak fishing. That’s because most of the bay is shallow and a great deal of those shallows are in the middle of the bay with lots of islands and flats. There’s great action for big striped bass, bluefish well into the teens, weakfish that approach world record sizes and big fluke. We headquartered the event at Gateway Park’s Floyd Bennett Field, part of the US Park Service. Gateway welcomed us as they saw it as a great way to give the park more exposure. Our main launch would be the old airfields sea plane launch.
We didn’t want the event to be about our business or any business. We agreed the proceeds would go to charity. The first two years we split the money between Gateway Parks and Casting for Recovery, a wonderful cause. The first year we had 52 participants. The second year well over 100 and by the third year we were nearing 200. It has grown steadily each year as the word’s gotten out. In the beginning a few of us would stay over Friday night. The park has since given us permission to camp which has allowed participants to stay a few nights and make traveling from long distances worthwhile. On Friday night over half the people are camping. The fishing and competition is really a small part of the experience. It’s all about the camaraderie, placing faces with names, making new friends and great fishing.
The most difficult thing about J-Bay is getting there. That’s because it’s part of New York City in the shadow of JFK airport. People are shocked there’s such great fishing in the middle of such an urban environment. It’s pretty special to experience what the bay has to offer with jets landing and taking off for all corners of the globe and to the north is the Manhattan skyline.
From its humble beginning in 2004 with 52 contestants the tournament is now a mainstay in the kayak fishing world and one of the biggest. 2010s total was in the mid 300s and every year the numbers have grown.
Come join us and join in on the fun.
