Anthony WV- Winning the very first ever West Virginia Kayak State Championship was Coy Lehman from Mountain State Kayak Anglers. Five fish that went for 75.25” gave Lehman just enough to edge second-place finisher, Evan Adamson.
“It was a very tough day out there,” Lehman said. “Out of 36 anglers, only six put up a five fish limit and 13 anglers didn’t even catch a scorable fish at all.”
Not only does Coy compete in the events, but also puts on the events for MSKA and was huge in making the West Virginia Kayak State Championship a thing. For him to secure the win in an event he helped create he claims he felt a mix of emotions.
“It’s such a mixed bag of emotions. I was the one that was supposed to hand the trophy to the first WV Champ,” Lehman said. “Jason Plumley, Greg Kupfner, and I have worked so hard with the common goal of wanting to make someone a WV Champ.”
Coy has been so involved with the creating of events that he hasn’t had much time to time fish them being so busy getting everything together.
“Heck, I narrowly got to even compete. After we announced our top 12 in AOY, one angler couldn’t make it, then Blaine Winters became the AOY for MSKA as well as SWVKA, this resulted in a coin toss that I lost,” Coy said. “This put Blaine fishing with SWVKA but making an additional roll-down spot for me. I got in due to a lost coin toss!”
Coy walked away with $1200, a new Wilderness System Recon 120 kayak, and a one-of-a-kind trophy. He claims the key to victory for him was sticking close to the awards ceremony location and keeping a finesse presentation.
“I was simply in the right place at the right time, Lehman said. “I choose to fish around the Greenbrier Youth Camp since that’s where we were having the awards. My thought was to fish there, so I could get off the water by noon and get everything set up for the awards.”
After launching Coy made about a half-mile drag and found a flat pool that was directly located in front of the Youth Camp steps. He made his first cast at 8 A.M. and caught his fifth fish at 10:17 A.M.
“The only thing that lined up perfectly for me was the time of year and fishing conditions, I am a finesse angler,” Lehman said. “Slow fishing in winter pools got it done. I used a Z-Man, Big TRD, Texas rigged with a tungsten weight all morning and caught all but one fish out of the same 100-yard pool.”
Coy also added that he wanted to give a few shoutouts to everyone involved in helping create this event. This is only the beginning of this event and Coy is sure it will only be bigger and better as the years go on.
“This was my first year running Mountain State Kayak Anglers, and I can’t describe enough how much our anglers supported me and made this year amazing for me,” Coy said. “Jason and Greg with WVKA and SWVKA were awesome to work with and made this event a breeze. We worked out 90% of the details, one evening while having dinner in Charleston.”
Coy, Jason, Greg, and members from each club would like to thank the following sponsors for supporting the event:
-Bernie’s River Stick Shop for the River Stick prize
-Marietta Adventure Company for the Wilderness Systems Recon
-Fishing Online For a spot on their fishing team and gift certificates
-Kayak Angler Magazine for covering the story
-Greenbrier County Youth Camp for providing the venue
-Ketch Products Inc. for the awesome trophy
-Mountaineer RV & Outdoor Center, LLC for providing the funds for all of the trophies
-Bending Branches for the awesome paddles
-Elevation Sports for all of the awesome prizes
-ZPRO Lithium for the prize battery and all of the swag
-Torqeedo Kayak Fishing for the gift certificates
-YakAttack for gift certificates
