®
Fall 2018
YOUTH ANG L E R
spotlight
Miles Kaneko
Photos Courtesy of Josh and Miles Kaneko
page 26
LAUNCHING
Sixteen-year-old, Miles Kaneko, a high school senior, kicked off his young fishing career with his dad Josh on the California Delta.
“I started tournament fishing when I was seven or eight,” recalled Kaneko. “My dad was fishing tournaments with his friend (Tom Shimabukuro) and it sounded interesting to me. He brought me along one day to a Tracy Bass or Won Bass event. I fished it with him and we ended up fishing the whole season. I really enjoyed it.”
Although he likes fishing of any kind, including both freshwater and saltwater, Kaneko’s passion lies in bass fishing – tournament bass fishing – and he said the competition has him hooked.
“I do like fishing for fun and my experience comes from fishing overall; but once you get into the competition, it ruins you,” he said.
TOURNAMENT TRAIL
With about eight years of sport competition already under his belt, Kaneko and his recent team partner Jared De Fremery put their experience to work. They repped for the Delta Teen Teams, earning the “W” at the FLW High School Fishing Open at Clear Lake this past May.
A full limit, weighing
19-2 gave them the
trophy at the event and
shot the teenage Delta
team straight to the 2018
Combined High School
Fishing World Finals and
National Championship
event held in Florence,
Ala. at Pickwick Lake, this
past June.
“Jared and I just
joined up this season
for high school fishing,”
Kaneko said. “When we
started out the year, it
was kind of slow; but then we got better. We qualified for a TOC on the Delta and we won the High School Open on Clear Lake and got to move on to Pickwick.”
The Pickwick event was Kaneko’s first foray into the traveling bass pro life. He enjoyed every aspect from the pre-event research to the competition itself.
“I was excited and started watching videos about the lake right away,” he said. “There was a lot about the lake being an offshore fishery and at the time, I was really comfortable with offshore fishing from going to Clear Lake, Berryessa, Oroville and Shasta. I felt like I had a feel for it and went in pretty confident; but, when we got there it was super tough.”
The challenge of their pre-fish wore on Kaneko. He went into Day One only hoping for a limit. He and De Fremery ended that first day in 5th place against 232 other teams.