Garin Butler has made the 2026 US kayak tournament season's most detailed rig walkthrough, and the early numbers justify the analysis — a sixth-place finish out of 37 at Lake Eufaula, Alabama, fishing his brand-new Hobie Pro Angler 14 360 build. The full video, uploaded 10 days ago, unpacks every mount, battery and fishing-specific quirk on the boat.
Butler started at the bow. "The first thing, which is probably one of the most important things on a boat or for daily use fishing anything is a net," he said. "This net is coming out when I'm fishing a tournament, cuz I don't care if it's a 12-incher or a 22-incher. This net is coming out." The net in question is a carbon-fibre Broken Twigs build, recycled from broken hockey sticks with a hockey puck as a float. "There's many times where I've dropped this in the water and it floats."
The dashboard carries a dual-unit layout on a cross-H-rail: Humminbird Helix 9 for side and down imaging, Garmin 93SV for LiveScope. "This setup — you still can skip cast, roll cast, all that stuff without your graphs interfering." It's a subtle but important win for bass kayak anglers who often find rod tips dragging across a second unit.
Propulsion is a Newport Vessels NK-300 motor on a Dugout Bait and Tackle steering triangle. Butler runs a non-standard steering rig — a button-and-actuator setup rather than foot pedals — built by welder Hernan Cortez in Wisconsin off a design from Paul Averill and Brian DeHaunte. Trim lives on a single cleat behind the BlackPak. "You can raise it, drop it. Super simple. You can do it one-handed."
Tackle is loaded into a BlackPak 13-by-16 crate with a ShortStack riding on top. A Big Bass Chris mount opens the pak without fouling the 10 rods packed above. "This setup is like really, really cool because I can still run 10 rods on my BlackPak and be able to utilize all the space."
Power is split three ways. The 36-volt 40 amp-hour Newport battery behind the BlackPak runs the NK-300. A 12-volt 50 amp-hour battery in the front hatch runs both graphs and the LiveScope, paired with a Garmin GLS 10 and an FPV power distributor on a Tim Percy plate. "That FPV power distributor comes in handy if I want to turn my live scope on, run it, or if I want to make a move and turn it off. I can control everything with a touch of a button including each graph separately, live scope and my nav lights." A 12-volt 20 amp-hour Nocqua pack under the seat keeps GoPros, phones and a Turtle Box speaker alive.
Camera placement is where most boats go wrong. Butler runs a long USB-C cable from the under-seat battery forward to the LiveScope-pole side, mounting an Insta360 at shoulder height. "I think this setup for the Insta360 cam is by far one of the cleanest setups. The angle of topwaters or landing fish, it looks so cool."
The detail that will have rigging-obsessed kayak anglers pausing: no new holes in the hull. Nav lights from Dugout Bait and Tackle are fixed with 3M tape and the wiring is routed above the deck and zip-tied to the bungee. "I just routed the wires above, zip tied it to the the bungee so they don't move and it's worked for two years like that perfectly."
Butler calls the boat "not the most fancy and high-tech one out there" — but the Eufaula sixth is unambiguous. "Was able to get sixth place out of 37. So, starting off hot with the new boat. Hopefully we can keep that streak going." For US and Australian kayak anglers trying to modernise their 2026 rig on a tournament budget, Butler's walkthrough is a useful baseline to copy.