Sherman Bishop vividly remembers time spent as a boy fishing from a johnboat with his uncle in Lake Marion — a 3,000-acre pearl located only a few miles northwest of Lake Kissimmee in central Florida.
He chose to fish Marion during the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series at Kissimmee Chain presented by Native Watercraft, too, as much in search of nostalgia as the prospect of winning the tournament.
He got both this weekend, though, with a two-day total of 10 largemouth bass measuring 204.75 total inches. That was the best performance of the tournament, placing him a full 5.25 inches ahead of his nearest competitor on the Kissimmee Chain.
Bishop, who lives in Auburndale, caught the longest limit of Florida largemouth bass on Sunday, measuring 104.25 inches. That vaulted him from second place, with 100.50 total inches on Saturday, to the top of the podium on Sunday.
Bishop, 47, collected $11,250 for the first-place finish — part of a $44,800 cash purse that was split among the Top 22 anglers fishing on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes. In all, 222 competitors from around the U.S. took part in the tournament, the second of the year in the 2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series.
Bishop cut his angling teeth at his aunt and uncle’s place out on Lake Marion Creek. When he closes his eyes, he can see his aunt netting golden shiners near their house. Bishop and his uncle used the bait to boat bulky largemouths back in the 1980s.
“The nostalgia of it is really the reason I went there this weekend,” he said. “It’s one of the areas I pre-fished, and I saw what I needed to see.”
That turned out to be bass in all three phases of the spawn. Bishop found what he called “transitional lanes” — areas where bass were moving into shallow water to spawn and those who’d finished spawning and were moving out.
“I thought it looked like a good spot, but it seemed to be overlooked by everybody else,” he said. “The water was about 5 feet deep and there was a sandy bottom that moved up to about 3 feet of water where there were hydrilla lines. The bass were hanging out there at the edge, staging in that hydrilla before moving farther inland.”
The lake was churned to the color of chocolate milk, Bishop said, so he couldn’t see any bass on beds. Remembering the golden shiners that were successful bait when he was a boy, he threw a variety of golden-colored lures on both days of the tournament.A paddle-tailed Gambler weightless swimbait produced the best catch of the day — one of two 22-inch bass he hooked in his surge to victory.
Bishop is chief foreman with a commercial roofing company and doesn’t get to fish as many national events as he’d like. But he’s a respected stick on the Central Florida kayak circuit, with a couple dozen wins in local tournaments in seven years of competitive kayak angling.
“I’d get in more national events if I had time, but you can guarantee I won’t miss that (Bassmaster Kayak Series National Championship) next year,” he said, referring to the title event he qualified for with his first-place finish on the Kissimmee Chain.
Rounding out the Top 10 in the tournament are: second, Texas angler Guillermo Gonzalez, 199.5, $5,250; third, Florida’s Chris Mitchell, 197.25, $3,750; fourth, Kentucky’s Anthony Winkleman, 196.75, $2,750; fifth, Alabama’s Garrett Wade, 195.5, $2,550; sixth, Pennsylvania’s Abby Abondanza, 195.25, $2,000; seventh, Georgia’s Gene Jensen, 193.25; $1,600; eighth, Massachusetts kayaker Ken Wood, 193.25; $1,500; ninth, Tennessee’s Jimmy McClurkan, 191.25, $1,400; and 10th, Virginia’s Casey Reed, 191.25, $1,300.
A total of 15 anglers from two different universities competed in the inaugural Bassmaster College Kayak Series tournament in Kissimmee, as well. Carson-Newman University won the event with their 10 best bass of the weekend totaling 193.5 inches. Campbellsville (Ky.) University trailed with the team’s 10 best bass measuring 176.5 inches.
Jimmy Entwistle of Campbellsville won the individual college title with 10 bass measuring 165.75 inches. Carson-Newman’s Ewing Minor placed second with 161.25 inches and Nate Faulkner of Campbellsville finished third with 154.5 inches.
College divisions will be held in two additional Kayak Series events this year — at Tennessee’s Dale Hollow in April and Toledo Bend on the Texas/Louisiana border in September. Like Entwistle, the top college angler in both of those tournaments also will earn a berth in the 2026 Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship.
Full results from the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series at Kissimmee Chain presented by Native Watercraft are scored by TourneyX and can be found here.
