This weekend, my partner and I fished the B.A.S.S. Nation VA High School Championship. It was a two day event held at Kerr Lake on the Virginia/North Carolina border. The top 22 Virginia high school teams determined by total weight from the three qualifying events for both the Northern and Southern Divisions fished this event. It was one heck of a nail biter but I will definitely say it was one of the best experiences of my life.
I went to the lake on Friday to pre-fish as I had never been to Kerr before, and I had a really good practice. I threw a weightless keitech swing impact 4.8", and landed 8 bass. Most of the time I would pull it away from them if I saw them following it, or get them to spit it out when they bit. I landed several 2-3.5lb fish, and one 4.3lb fish. I didn't get many bites on anything else so the plan for day 1 was to fish the swimbait in the key areas I found, and have my partner follow me up with a senko as he usually does.
Within the first 30 minutes I had jumped one off at the net on a swimbait, and missed a 3lber on a senko that I saw cruising and sight-cast to, It was not a good feeling. We continue down the bank, and I actually caught the exact same fish that I did in practice for our first keeper, a 13"er, on a senko. A little further down the bank my partner puts one in the boat on the senko. I was having lots of fish follow the swimbait and swat at it but they just weren't eating it like the day before. We spotted 2 nice fish on a bed and fooled with them for a little, but they weren't interested so we continued on. We picked up 2 more fish on the senko, and I finally put one in the boat on a swimbait. We only had one fish in the well under 14" but everything else was between 15" and 17". We decided to make another pass over the spot we had fished earlier since I knew it was holding fish. We backed waaaaay off and threw really long casts with a senko. I set the hook and see a big fish roll, after a nerve-wracking spinning rod battle we netted our big fish for the day, a lean post spawner that went 3.26lbs. We continued hitting spots from practice with the swimbait and senko follow up method, and landed quite a few bass, but we couldn't cull out 3 fish that were in the 15-16" range, we were just catching clones. We decided to try a rock bluff, and that turned out to be the right decision. I didn't do anything fishing a jig or swimbait on the 300 yard stretch we hit, but my partner somehow got on a senko bite by casting way in front of the boat and letting it sink until the bait was way behind us before tightening up again. He landed a fat fish around 3lbs that bit when the senko was still falling 30 yards behind the boat. We decided to leave the bank so we had fish to work with on day twp. My partner made our last cull 100 yards from the ramp 5 minutes before check-in!
We ended up with 5 for 12.24lbs putting us in second place. The leaders had 12.99lbs, and 3rd was only a little over 10 so we had a nice cushion. Most teams had 8 or 9lbs so truly it could be anyone's game on day two.
Well we looked back on our day, and my partner had put 14 fish in the boat from the back on a senko compared to my 8 fish from the front, only 3 being on the swimbait, the rest on the senko. We did not get a single bite even on drop shots and shakey heads during the day. That night I rigged up 4 spinning rods for us to throw wacky senkos, because clearly that's what they were eating, even the big ones.
Day two was nasty, wind and rain were both constant. We went to a pocket that we had seen fish in the day before, and my partner quickly put 2 in the boat on a senko while it was still getting light. I did throw the swimbait around but it became apparent very quickly what I needed to be throwing. We started down our bluff bank and I put one in the boat within minutes, and shortly after that we had two more. Roughly a 6:15am launch and we had 5 before 7am! In less than an hour after that, we put close to a dozen in the boat on that bluff bank, including a fish that was pushing 3, and culling until everything we had was 16" plus. The wind got so bad that even with the trolling motor on its highest setting I was not making any progress so we made a short run to some coves we could see that had lots of rock and wood in them. We were absolutely smoking them everywhere we went. Rock and wood were both holding fish, and pretty soon we didn't have any fish in the livewell under 17". We hit our bluff bank one more time and caught a handfull of fish, but none that helped. We headed back to our starting spot for day one, and I made a cull for a few ounces, then a huge band of rain hit. The rain was so heavy you couldn't see far so we idled under a bridge to wait it out. The rain let up and we were out of spots. Storms were in the area so we chose to stay close to the ramp and just fish to see what happens.
We were in a creek that was too shallow during practice but the lake had come up at least a foot since then so I was feeling a little better about it. I tossed to a small log sticking up in the middle of a pocket, and after my bait had been sinking for a few seconds when my line started to move sideways. I leaned back on it and it didn't move. My partner later told me "I heard you gasp so I grabbed the net". I caught a glimpse of the fish and I knew this was the one we needed. She turned around and made a beeline to the log she came from, and wrapped around it one time. I eased my drag off and stomped on the trolling motor to head over and try to get her out. She swam back around and I pulled her over towards the boat. She came up and my partner scooped her in the net. I jumped up and probably just about knocked the wind out of my partner because I patted him on the back so hard. We caught a few more fish but that ended up being our last cull for the day.
We ended up with the biggest bag of the day at 15.53 pounds and had big fish for a while with 4.65lbs but someone brought in a 5.4. The leaders from day one brought in 11.8lbs putting us in first place! Watching them pull fish out of their bag to put on the scales was just about as bad as the nerves I got from coaxing the big fish out from behind a log with a spinning rod! We landed 52 keeper bass in our two days fishing the tournament, that lake was an absolute blast! The top two places from this event qualify for the HIgh School National Championship so my partner and I will be heading to Kentucky Lake in August!!!!! If you read this far, congrats!
Day one
Day two (the stone cold killer in the orange and camo is headed to the National Championship as well, for the junior division. He is an excellent angler)
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