Moses Lake Washington was the site of the second annual TBF/FLW High School Bass Team Championship. Seven high schools from around the state had teams competing to win the title; Spokane area had three teams show up. Mt Spokane Wildcats, Central Valley Bears, University High Titans.
Moses Lake had two teams representing the Moses Lake high school Chiefs, and teams as far away as Long View Washington, R.A. Long High School Lumberjacks and Tumwater high school Thunderbirds had teams ready to pit their skills against all comers to try and bring in the heaviest bag of fish to the scales.
The weather had cooperated and been stable for about a week with exceptionally hot sunny clear days to push small mouth bass onto spawning beds with a number of large mouth pushed up fanning beds or locked on in some areas of the lake. The lake temperature was in the mid to high sixties with little or no wind through out the day, and made for great fishing conditions.
All teams brought fish to the scale with, Moses Lake Chiefs team of Harris Turner and Dustin Caldwell managing to cull their way to the top of the group with a mixed bag of small mouth and large mouth to top the scale at 20.80 lbs for first place. Local lake knowledge was sure to have helped find the right fish to win. Second place went to Spokane’s University High School Titans team of Joe Choiniere and Nathan Portch who weighed in 19.38 lbs with a challenge for second from Mt Spokane High Wildcats Dakota Jones and Logan Meredith who placed third with 19.16 lbs.
Fourth place went to the Tumwater Thunderbird team of Carl Jackson and Brodie Trapp of Selah who weighed in 18.20 lbs, fifth place went to a Central Valley brother sister team from Spokane, Nicholas Shaber who is this years Junior State Champion and also weighed big fish of the tournament, a 5.36 lb large mouth bass, and sister Kelsey who finished fifth at the junior tournament. They weighed in 15.52 lbs.
Sixth went to R.A. Long High School Lumberjacks Cully Scroggins & Andre Davies who weighed in 9.77 lbs, with Seventh place taken by another Moses Lake Chief team of Mason Mathews & Shawn Juhl who weighed in 6.87 lbs competing in their first tournament.
Winning team will move on the Western Conference Championship held this fall in conjunction with the Collegiate Western conference championship against six other State champions. Winners of the conference will move on to the High School National Championship in conjunction with the Collegiate National Championship with an opportunity to win $10,000 in scholarship funds.
Thanks go out to Cascade Marine, Tom & Roxanne Tweed, Pot Holes bass club, sponsors, Three Rivers marine, Interstate Batteries, Cabela’s, Big Hawg Baits, Spokane Valley Marine and all the team boat captains Bruce Mathews, David Slater, Dan Keele, Craig Shaber, Jeff Jackson, Jarris Turner, Randy (Zip) Decker. Additional information can be found at (www.highschoolfishing.org) or Washington State Bass Federation website (www.wabass.org) in the youth section.
