4.1 Million in Scholarships and Prizes Awarded on the Final Day of the World Finals Event
Over 1,200 miles of Lake Cumberland shoreline welcomed 411 teams from across the US and Canada this week for the 2026 National Championship and World Finals events. Teams embraced beautiful skies and calm waters for three tournament days. On the final day, storms rolled in and riled up the bite. All previous weights were zeroed; one day of fishing would make or break it as the top 31 teams left it all on the water for the titles.
Nolan Savage and Jack Naas from Maine topped the field with a limit of bass weighing 12.10 pounds to be crowned champions. The team had a slow start to the tournament, struggling on the first two days to catch a limit. Going into the official tournament days, they scraped all their practice and basically started over.
“On the first two days, by 10:30 am, we had no fish. We were only getting about a bite an hour, and they were so super stingy,” Naas said. “We had to try a whole bunch of stuff to make them bite, and from experimenting on days one and two, we figured out what to do to make them eat.”
“We were having trouble getting them to commit,” Savage added. “When they actually bit it, they weren’t biting really hard. They were never hooked that hard, and they were really good at spitting it out. Then, after finding the one fish on day one,” Savage continued. “It’s hard to do the same thing for that long in a tournament this long. Mentally, you gotta change it up.”
Sometimes, it’s not the huge shifts that make the most difference, but the small ones in fishing and in life- it’s all in the details.
“Bait Fuel,” the team said together. “We started putting bait fuel into a lunch baggie with a bunch of bait, and then we let it marinate. The Bait Fuel set in and gave it a really strong smell; we think that really helped.”
Although they had trouble early, they kept faith in the same area all week. The area housed a ton of bait fish and larger fish surrounding them. They just had to figure out how to make the big ones bite.
“We were pretty much alone the whole tournament,” the team said. “Maybe one other team in our area that didn’t leave. Some boats would come in and then go right back out. The last day we heard someone catch one really close to us scream, but they weren’t doing what we were doing out there.”
On day three, they finished sixth in the semi-finals bracket with a three-bass limit weighing 9 pounds. After traveling 25 hours from Maine to fish unfamiliar waters, the constant grind and grit are a true testament to these champion anglers.
“We were fishing in 150 feet of water, super deep,” the Maine anglers said. “It’s totally different. At home, we don’t fish deeper than like 30 feet.”
That’s not the only difference back in Maine. For six months out of the year, the ponds are all covered in ice. “It’s not a year-round sport; it’s very limited, and I think that speaks volumes for how hard they’ve worked to get here,” Maine’s boat captain, “Grampie,” said.
“Yes, from April to October, that’s what they’ve got,” Savages mom, Lindsay Savage, commented. “They also live an hour away from each other. They have no school team, no coach, and no sponsors.”
Nolan Savage attends Bangor High School, and Jack Naas attends Waterville High School, both representing the state of Maine. The team and their families are hoping this win will foster growth and bring more attention to the slow-growing sport of bass fishing in Maine. “We 100% hope it will help the program grow up north,” the anglers said. “We came, we did this, and we won. They can do this too.”
Lindsay Savage and Nolan Savage’s “grampie” made the 25-hour trek to the world finals event. Nolan’s father, Terry Savage, had to stay back with their other daughter and to run a local tournament. The group expressed gratitude for this type of tournament open to anglers from all across the US.
“Not a lot of teams really get to do this; it’s a lot of exposure to come south and put the time in to do the traveling,” Lindsay Savage said. “I think it has certainly helped them be competitive with all the people who fish down here where it’s more of a culture.”
The local Maine weigh-in was going on at the same time as the World Finals weigh-in. When the boys raised their trophies center stage back in Maine, Nolan’s dad and several other Maine bass anglers were huddled around the live stream, cheering them on.
“I can’t wait to go back and see all the guys in the federation that have watched me grow up since I was eight years old, “Nolan Savage said, “They’re all kinda like papas to me and I think they’ll be really proud.”
“We’ve watched the live stream on this drive probably a dozen times,” Naas said. “I probably should have been a little more excited on stage. It’s just one of those things; it’s hard to know where you place in the standings, and you don’t want to be super excited on stage either for it to come off cocky or disrespectful. Looking back, I’m just like, wow, we really had a shot at it, and we came through.”
“It was pretty crazy. I wasn’t really freaking out in the moment,” Savage said. “I really didn’t have time to think about it until we started driving. We are world champions; it’s a dream come true.”
The pattern they locked down in the semi-finals pushed them almost two pounds over the competition on the final day. The 2026 High School Fishing World Finals Champions, Nolan and Savage, will be celebrating this win for the rest of their lives. They will forever be changed, and because of their success, hopefully the sport of fishing in Maine will, too.
