Competitive bass anglers are well known to have a hankering for metal-flaked boats with mega-horsepower engines, but an angler from nearby Uniontown has punched his ticket for the biggest stage in the sport by fishing from a kayak.

Brandon Riffle, a Portage County deputy sheriff, will compete in this spring’s Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship on Chickamauga and Nickajack lakes thanks to winning the Ohio Kayak Fishing Angler of the Year honors. En route to the title, he won the circuit’s Salt Fork tournament.

Riffle will join five other Ohioans in the March 11-13 championship, including his travel partner Joe McCall of Tuscarawas County. A bonus for the kayak qualifiers will be sharing the stage March 13 with the competitors in the Bassmaster Classic in Knoxville, Tenn.

The prestigious tournament is the culmination of a season of success for Riffle, who made the jump from big-boat tournaments to kayaks several years ago.

Riffle’s victory at Salt Fork near Cambridge was especially gratifying as the lake was brand new to him.

“I never saw the lake before. When I practiced before the tournament, I liked what I saw,” he said. “Salt Fork is a beautiful lake with cliffs and hills. I practiced shallow and caught a few so I had a game plan for the tournament day. It dawned foggy, so I decided to run-and-gun shallow stuff instead of going out to off-shore spots.”

He scored early on a triple-wing buzzbait, which he manufactures under his 330 Bait Co. brand. The fishing was tough, as he expected, and when the fog lifted, he headed offshore to look for bigger bass.

“But I didn’t catch any by 1 p.m., so I looked on Google Earth and decided to fish a bay I could see with grass. I grabbed a rod with a fluke and immediately caught a nice fish on a shade line. And then soon got another. I finished up in the back of a pocket with a bomb cast that tricked a big fish.”

His catch outscored the others in the big field of OKF competitors.

Riffle clinched his Angler of the Year title in October on Indian Lake, another lake he never fished before. He caught fish on frogs in pads and duckweed, as well as under boat docks.

While kayak competition doesn’t provide the anglers with the great mobility of 60-mph bass boats, Riffle loves the challenge. Of course, his kayak is not a down-and-dirty fishing platform.

“I started fishing kayak tournaments three years ago because I wanted a new challenge. The big-boat scene was getting on my nerves. I made good decisions this year. In kayak fishing, you’ve got to make the right decisions when it counts, especially when it comes to your locations, because moving around is not as easy as it is in a big boat.”

His kayak is a Hobie 360 with a stern-mount electric drive system. The vessel measures 13 feet, 8 inches long and 38 inches wide. He has outfitted the kayak with two sonar graphs, a 9-inch Garmin with Livescope and a Humminbird 10-inch helix with 360 imaging. His propulsion is powered by a 36-volt lithium battery. He uses a 12-volt to run the electronics.

His advice for beginners is to start with a basic, stable rig.

“Kayak fishing for people who don’t want to spend 80, 90 or 100 grand on a boat or who want a different challenge, I recommend you get something you feel stable in, but you don’t have to overdo it. Get the basics, a pedal drive and a milk crate to store your stuff. You don’t even need graphs at first.”

He says northeast Ohioans have lots of great kayak water with the numerous reservoirs. He also fishes the Tuscarawas River regularly for smallmouths and has experience on the Mahoning River between Berlin and Milton.

Kayak fishing opens new waters to anglers who lack access to boats and, as Riffle points out, serves up new opportunities on parts of our lakes where big boats simply cannot access.