FISHING TOURNAMENT HONORS LATE ANGLER
The league that ran the Lake Okeechobee tournament at which pro fisherman Nik Kayler died this month said Wednesday it will get back to competitions on the lake, saying that’s the best way to honor him.
The Fishing League Worldwide Tour said it will start its 23rd season Jan. 25 with an event on the lake that will draw 374 bass-fishing pros and co-anglers, with awards of up to $125,000.
“We’ve had thorough and thoughtful internal discussions as a company and the decision was made that we need to get back on the water,” Kathy Fennel, FLW’s president of operations, said Wednesday in a statement.
“We are still grieving as an organization, but fishing tournaments are what we do. It is what Nik loved, too,” Fennel said.
The statement urged people to continue to donate to a fundraising webpage for Kayler’s family. Set up with a goal of $15,000, it collected more than $20,000 in one day, and it was at around $84,000 by Wednesday afternoon.
The FLW’s Fennel added that “We will honor Nik by continuing to pursue the sport that we all love.”
Anthony Llanos, Kayler’s half-brother, said Wednesday he was all for it.
“Nik loved to fish. Doing what he loved. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he said.
People gathered Sunday night on Lake Okeechobee to “light up the dike” to honor the champion fisherman who died after being thrown from a boat.
On Jan. 10, a commercial boat found the remains of the 38-year-old military veteran, husband and father in the lake near a water tower in Clewiston. It had been nearly a week since a wave slammed Kayler’s boat, tossing him out and damaging the engine.
Kayler, from Apopka, and tournament fishing partner Bill Kisiah, 51, from Slidell, La., had left Okeechobee the morning of Jan. 4, the first day of the FLW’s three-day Costa Series tournament. A search began when the two failed to check in around dinnertime. At about 11 p.m., an exhausted Kisiah and his 21-foot Ranger Z521 came ashore near the Pahokee Marina.
Hours after Kayler’s body was found, Phil Kayler called his brother “an awesome guy. Loved fishing. Loved this lake.”