Another tournament season came to a close this past weekend at Clarks Hill Lake.  The GHSA Championship was held at Wildwood Park for the 107 teams that qualified during the four regular season events.  High School teams from all around Georgia came to test their skills, while trying to win the coveted Championship trophies.  The weather was much improved over last years event and the anglers were treated with a really good day of fishing.

The Lanier Longhorn team of Bryson Dover and Angel Cornejo brought 20-08 to the scales and sealed the victory for their school.  The Kings Ridge team of Jackson Thomas and Cole Bradley finished second with a good limit that weighed 16-07 pounds.  Their bag included the Big Bass of the day as well, with a whopping 7-14 pound largemouth.  Third place was the lady team of Madison Hawkins and Cara Perry from Dawson County, who weighed 16-05 pounds.  Churchill Harris and Campbell Patterson brought in 15-11 pounds to finish fourth and Brennan Enfinger and Corbyn Thompson weighed 15-08 pounds to finish fifth.

A total of eighty-seven teams weighed in at least one fish, which shows how good the lake is fishing right now.  Several of the anglers reported catching their fish out of deep water, anywhere from 15-35 feet, using Ned Rigs, Drop Shots, Jigs and Carolina Rigs.  But the majority of the other teams were fishing relatively shallow, anywhere from one to five feet of water.  Spinnerbaits, crankbaits and soft plastics were are catching fish.  Many of the teams said that a white Fluke was responsible for most of the fish they weighed in.  Some were using it weightless while others used a light weight to be able to make longer casts.  Some were letting it sink and then reeling it back in, while others said they were twitching it along either on top of the water or just under the water where they could still see it.  Docks, tree laps wood cover and rocks were where most everyone was fishing.

For Full Results and all the photos from the GHSA Championship CLICK HERE 

The Montana Student Angler Federation (MTSAF) State Championship was held on May 21^st at Noxon Reservoir in Trout Creek, Montana. It was an exciting event, with blue skies, great fishing and lots of sore thumbs and smiles all around! Seven teams competed, with 6 out of the seven teams weighing-in a five fish limit. Bags of Largemouth took the top three places, but there were also a few nice 2 to 3 lb. Smallmouth weighed in.  Strategies ranged from flipping soft plastics in structure on the banks and targeting spawners to dragging jigs on rocky bottoms and targeting pre-spawners to finesse techniques and trying to track down smallmouth “wolf packs”.

The team of Drake Dawson and Christian Rensel won the Championship title by 11 oz and secured their spot in the National Championship, weighing in an 18lb 15oz bag of Largemouth, including the “big fish” of the tournament weighing in at 5.0 lbs.

Second-place team, Silas Jones and Aiden Currie, were hot on the heels of Dawson & Rensel with 18lbs 4oz of Largemouth. With two first-place finishes earlier in the season and the second-place finish at the MTSAF State Championship, Jones and Currie clenched the AOY Team title, also securing a spot in the National Championship.

Riley Brown and Mason Kelch won 3^rd place with 14lbs 6oz of Largemouth; followed by Preston LittleEagle and Hunter Purkey in 4^th with a 14lbs 5oz mixed bag of largies and smallies, missing the 3^rd place spot by just 1 ounce!

The 5^th through 7^th placings played out as follows:

5^th – Austin Hoff and Hunter Miland  (11lbs 8oz)

6^th – Miles Klein and Gunnar Stephens (9lbs 13oz)

7^th – Ethan Galassi and Bryson Bostwick (6.6 pounds).

A special thank-you to the Lakeside Motel and Resort in Trout Creek for offering discounted lodging to the boys and their families and for providing pizza for the pre-tournament meeting. Also, to Grant Aumiller for donating his time to take photos during weigh-in.

We had a great turnout of family-members and fellow adult league anglers to support and cheer-on the teams. Montana TBF is very proud of these boys and looking forward to a lot of talent and success in the future!

4 teams battled it out on May 13^th for the Oregon high school championship. Launching out of Celilo Park on the Columbia River @ 5:45AM, the teams were greeted with warm and fairly calm conditions that were expected to continue until the 2:00PM weigh in time and then turn into a gusty east wind.

The teams reported that there were plenty of biting smallmouth,  30 to 60 caught per boat,  but the bigger ones were very challenging to find. The anglers mentioned crankbaits, swimbaits, ned rigs, and drop shot as the main baits used during the event.

The weigh ins proved to be historic for Oregon as the team of Berkley Osborn and Emily Buller with 14.15lbs became the first ever all girl team to win the state championship!! 2^nd place went to Gabe Thomas and Bode Nichols with 13.00lbs, in 3^rd place was Drew Janke and Will Harris with 11.84lbs and 4^th place went to Shane Long and Sawyer Strong with 10.61lbs.