Guillermo Gonzalez has been knocking on the door this whole season. Three Top 10s in the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series presented by Native Watercraft, several events where the win was in reach, but no blue trophy to show for it.
That changed on the Wolf and Fox rivers.
The Fort Worth, Texas pro closed out the 2026 regular season with a two-day total of 188.00 inches, taking the win over an 87-angler field and collecting the $4,900 top prize. He backed into the final round from second place with 92.25 inches on Day 1, then posted the biggest single-day bag of the entire event, 95.75 inches, on Sunday to close the gap and take the W.
Gonzalez fished the event out of a NuCanoe Unlimited Max rigged with a Newport NK300 HD and two Newport 36V 50Ah LoPRO lithium batteries.
The Run Came First
Gonzalez launched on the Wolf River and didn't start fishing until he was roughly five miles from the ramp. Once he got there, he worked a long stretch and put fish in the boat on over 80% of his spots. Do miles add up over a two-day event. Ten miles of on-water running per day, plus repositioning, just to put himself in a position to catch 'em.
On a river fishery with a well-defined stretch of productive water and 87 anglers trying to get to all the best spots located during pre-fishing, that transit time is a difference maker. Whoever gets to the honey hole first gets a clean crack at the fish. Everybody else is just fishing behind the first to the spot.
Gonzalez the run-time problem with the NK300 HD (1,300 watts of output, and 3hp equivalent) paired with two 36V 50Ah LoPRO lithium batteries.
The pairing is the part worth understanding. Plenty of anglers can make a long run. The question is whether they can afford to make it wide open, 100% throttle the whole way. One battery forces you to ration power: throttle back to preserve range, or run hard and start doing capacity math halfway through the day. Two 50Ah packs remove that decision entirely.
Gonzalez ran at 100% power for as much of the day as he wanted to, got to the top of his stretch ahead of the field, moved between his 10 to 12 spots without hesitating, and still had the reserve to make the five-mile trip back to the ramp without worry.
That's not a small edge on a fishery like this. That's a Champion's strategy.
Then He Ground it Out
Once he got where he was going, the winning adjustment was the opposite of hustle.
Day 1 was a grind for Gonzalez, who spent much of the afternoon working outside cut banks, which is where the better-quality fish were holding, but the morning bite never came together for him. He couldn't figure out what those fish were doing early.
Sunday morning gave him the answer, and it came from watching instead of casting. He noticed a couple of fish blow up off a sand bar drop, and rather than fire into them and move on, he stopped and observed for a while. The fish that were actively feeding were stacked in the holes just off those sand breaks. He caught a limit in about 15 minutes on the first spot he used this tactic on.
From there on out, it became repeatable. At every new spot, Gonzalez would hold off and watch for a swirl or any small sign of feeding activity, then fire a cast into the feeder zone.
He folded in a cut-bank approach later in the day, and it produced two of his five biggest fish - solidifying the win for "G".
The Baits
Two setups did the work:
- 5- and 6-inch harnessed swimbaits on the cut banks. Gonzalez chose the harnessed rig specifically because he could skip it up under the undercut bank for immediate reaction bites.
- A 5-inch Bucca Baits Trick Shad over the drop-offs, fished naturally with the currents got those fish off the bottom to commit to the bait.
Big Fish of The Event
G double-dipped, with a 20.75-inch smallmouth that took the event's $500 Big Fish standings.
What's Next
That closes the book on the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series regular season. Attention now shifts to the Newport Bassmaster Kayak Championship presented by Native Watercraft, October 15–17.