Stockton, Mo.—After top five finishes by Ozark High School teams in all three qualifying events, Ozark’s Dalton Combs and Joe Satterly finally sealed the deal for their school by winning the Teen Anglers Championship June 13-14 at Stockton Lake.
Ozark High School anglers Dalton Combs (left) and Joe Satterly won the inaugural Teen Anglers Championship June 13-14 at Stockton Lake with a two-day catch of 10 bass weighing 21.99 pounds.
In previous Teen Angler events, Ozark teams finished fourth at Lake of the Ozarks, fifth at Table Rock and Combs and Satterly placed fourth at the Stockton qualifier. This time Combs and Satterly topped a field of 79 teams from 25 schools with a two-day catch of 21.99 pounds to win the inaugural championship. They each collected a $1,500 scholarship from Lew’s and earned the first big bass award (two $500 gift certificates to Sportsman’s Factory Outlet) with a 6.50-pound largemouth. Lew’s provided $10,000 in scholarship money to the top five finishing teams and $2,000 in gift certificates to its Sportsman’s Factory Outlet for the three big bass awards.
The first competition day Combs and Satterly weighed in a five-fish limit totaling only 8.79 pounds and held 24th place in the standings. “We hit points that were really deep and caught a bunch of keepers but we just couldn’t get the right ones,” Combs said.
They caught all of their fish on a 3/16-ounce shaky jighead with a watermelon candy Zoom Trick Worm. “We would shake it then give a long pause and usually when we would go back to shaking the fish would be on there,” Combs said.
Top Ten
The second day they employed the same technique to catch their limit by 10 a.m. “We tried switching up going to deeper water and bigger lures,” said Satterly. They culled out two fish and finished the day with 13.20 pounds to clinch the championship.
Republic High’s Brandon Durr and Hunter Gill finished second and each earned $1,250 in scholarship money with 10 largemouth bass weighing 21.87 pounds. “Stockton’s not necessarily our home lake but we do get to come up here pretty often,” Gill said. “We got to practice Thursday and it was pretty tough but we found out what we were going to do Friday.” Durr said. They caught their fish both days on either 1/4-ounce shaky jigheads with a green pumpkin Zero worms or 7/16-ounce shaky jigheads with green pumpkin magnum finesse worms dragged slowly along main lake points and drop-offs 15 feet deep.
Hudson Lee and Trent Distiller of Helias Catholic High School placed third with eight bass weighing 21.83 and received $1,000 each in scholarship money. They led the tournament the first day with a 15.30-limit but fell to third after catching only three keepers weighing 6.53 the final day. Both days the Helias anglers threw Zara Spooks and buzz baits in the morning and followed up with shaky head worms and jigs in the afternoon. They found their fish in scattered brush about 6 to 15 feet deep.
Hillcrest High’s Garrett Moeller and Ashley Ruggles settled into fourth place with 21.13 pounds and collected $750 apiece in scholarship money. Moeller noted the first day they caught their fish throwing horsehead jigs with Arkansas shiner Keitech swimbaits and crankbaits and flipping Texas-rigged 10-inch plastic worms to riprap around bridges. Ruggles said the fishing was “a lot tougher” the second day when they had to catch their fish flipping 10-inch worms to flooded bushes 1 to 3 feet deep.
Finishing fifth with 20.05 pounds and receiving $500 each in scholarship money was the Republic High team of Jace Houchin and Colton Mease. They caught all of their fish both days on spinnerbaits, Pigsticker jigs, and shaky head jigs along wind-blown bluff ends. The Republic anglers also won the third big bass award of two $200 gift certificates with a 5.56-pounder. The second big bass award of two $300 gift certificates went to Logan-Rogersville High’s Garrett Jernigan and Tad Mitchell with a 5.93-pound largemouth.
The raffle ticket drawing to raise money for a Teen Anglers scholarship fund was held after the Day 2 weigh-in. Leon Holt of Springfield was the winner of the 2014 Ford F150 XL pickup truck.
