Edit- there will be a part two once i get the chance to sit down and type it.
So as my final tournaments of my highschool career are winding down, I started to realize what a trip its been. Last year was my 1st year of tournament fishing and boy was it a rough ride. 1st tournament 28 degrees and windy (this was October in North Carolina) so to say that we were not expecting weather like that is an understatement. Down at the Chowan river in Edenton Nc. Mind you this was my first time really gearing up and going after bass, i was lucky i had a team mate that was an extremely good fisherman and taught me many things. 1st tourney, 2 fish for 7 something pounds, 4th place, 2nd tournament late November Kerr lake Nc. 29 boats. By this time i had a little more knowledge and was better prepped. Fished all day with only one keeper that my partner caught on the first cast of the day. Came in 24th out of 29, two-way tie with .98lbs (what are the chances??). Third tourney of the year Kerr lake AGAIN march 14th, we zeroed, came in a 11 way tie for last place. (Side note only 19 teams fished that day, NO team caught a limit). Then even after that crappy tourney We decided to fish the Student angler federation Nc/Va state championship which was the following week on Kerr lake AGAIN (we didn't learn lessons very well). We didn't get to practice before the tournament but my dad and i had spent every weekend in march on Kerr so we had some ideas of what to do. My dad and i camped in a tent at a campsite right next to the boat ramp, it was perfect camping weather. The Tournament day arrives and we are getting ready, my partner shows up and we get the boat loaded and now we wait for the all clear to launch the boat and start staging, we are in my partners boat, an 88' challenger that is 15ft 6 inches with a 70hp merc on the back, We were out gunned and out classed in every manner that day, but we couldn't let that get us down, we were boat 13 and had a choice to make on do we go make a long run first and get the snot beat out of us, or do we run to a lil ol pocket that we thought there might be some in. We ran about 5 mins down the lake getting passed on both sides by boats that were screaming down the lake, im pretty sure theres still marks from where i clenched so hard ?. This is the part of the story where its important to realize that fishing is such a mental game, we went in knowing that we were going against some of the best anglers in both states and that they had the latest in greatest, boats or graphs or what ever else they might need ("need").
We went out that day not knowing what we were gonna do, just that we were going to go catch fish and try our hardest to win. It was tough, I only caught one fish which was culled out by my partner no more than 10 mins later, I also lost a good fish around 3ish pounds that would have helped, but in the end none of this mattered, in the last 25 mins we put on a show of which I am still in awe of today, we pulled up fishing behind not one boat but three, all along the final stretch by the weigh-in site, these boys were all throwing reaction baits around buck brush, so we did the logical thing and picked up our flipping sticks. on the very first pitch my partner set into a fish that was sitting right beside the stem of the little piece of brush. and it was like all hell broke loose. This fish jumped itself straight up and into the piece of brush, and got his line so wrapped up that it was left dangling just out of the water thrashing but being held up from his line, a quick manuver with the net and the fish was safely cradled up and unhooked, an absolute brute of a Kerr lake bass 5lbs or so, she culled out around a 1.5lber. then we repeated that pattern on every single bush for the last 20 mins and culled 6 times aswell as replaced one of our under 14s with a 4.5lb brute.
We weighed in with just under 17 pounds, 16.80 to be exact. Anyone who knows kerr understands that 16lbs is a respectable bag for that lake. When they announced that we had won I gave my partner a hug and was just beyond excited, the feeling that rushes through you is an amazing one for sure. Our biggest fish was 4.82 beating out the second biggest which was 4.73. I would like to take this moment to take everyone who read through and got to experience some of my excitement second hand, I love the bass fishing community so much and especially the bass resource community, y'all have helped me through some bad times and some amazing times and i am so proud to be a part of this community.
Also side note im the tall one on the right and my partner trevor is to the left.
