One thing is for sure, with 120 teams in the Arkansas High School State Championship tournament, you were going to need to catch some quality fish if you expected to advance onto the next level.  From the 120 boat field at Lake Dardanelle, the top 10% of the Arkansas High School teams would advance to the Southern Conference Final in October.  As it turned out it would take just one ounce shy of 11 pounds to make the top 12 cut.

CJ Brustrom & partner William Carpenter of Cedar Ridge High School came out on top as the overall winners with a nice limit of bass weighing 16.12 pounds.  Their first place weight was anchored by the biggest bass of the tournament, a big 5.40 pound largemouth, earning them 2 Lew’s Spinning Reels.  Most of the anglers reported fishing to be tough as they were on the water the day after the BFL was on Dardanelle at the same location.  However, it still took good weights to finish near the top of the leader board.
Second place was taken by Zach Ingram & Chase Galloway from Heber Springs High School with 15.01 pounds.  Finishing third and also taking the highest finishing SAF Team honor was the team of Colton Day & Jake White of River Valley High School.  Their weight was 14.01 pounds.  Fourth place belonged to Layton Lovell & Jordan Bumpous from Cedar Ridge High School with 13.15 pounds.  Rounding out the top five was Nick Kuras & Fisher Thomas with 13.01 pounds.  When asked about how they caught their fish, most of the top teams were pretty much doing the same thing.  They were having to use a variety of baits to catch a limit of fish, and they were having to weed through a lot of little fish in order to find the keeper fish.  Some of the most popular baits were a white spinnerbait, a jig, a plastic worm, a buzzbait, a topwater frog and a crankbait.  Most anglers were barely able to fill the 5 bass limit as only a few anglers reported catching more than five keeper fish.

The remaining qualifiers for the Southern Conference Final were as follows: six place was Tyler Dobbs & Greywolf Burch from the Highland Rebels with 12-15 pounds, seventh place went to Phillip Gottsponer & Cole Bottoms from the Perryville Mustangs with 12.11 pounds, eighth place was Jacob English & Chris Hildreth Jr from North Pulaski High School with 12.03 pounds, ninth place was the team of Sawyer Floyd & Brandon Paladino from the Vilonia Eagles with 11.05 pounds, tenth place belonged to Chase Myers & Carl Swede from Arkansas SAF with 11.03 pounds, eleventh place was Jonathan Dotson & Logan Kreamers from River Valley High School with 11.01 pounds and the final qualifying spot, in twelfth place went to Konnor McKay & Trey Slater from the WHS Waterdogs with 10.15 pounds.  All in all, it was a great day for high school fishing as 22 teams weighed in a five fish limit and 78 of the 120 teams weighed in at least one fish.

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Oakley Connor and Daniel Clark tied both tied on a frog and worked the Lake Marion Grass all day to catch a very nice limit of bass the tipped the scales at 23lbs 9oz to win the South Carolina High School State Championship.

“The morning bite was good for us” stated the smiling pair who stayed fairly close to the John C. Land Boating center launch point. The big bag was anchored by a 6lb 14oz toad that propelled the duo to the South East Conference Regional Championship at Lake Lanier in September. That fish also claimed the Lew’s Big Bass award which won the pair a two terrific Lew’s Reels for their efforts.

Finishing in second place was the team of Eric Glenn and Nathan McPherson from Berkeley High School who also had a very respectable bag of Santee Cooper bass that weighed 16lbs event to punch their ticket to the fall regional as well.

Coming in third was the tandem of Sean Hall and Kyler McKie from North Augusta High School who had a 4 fish sack that tipped at 13lbs to also advance to post season play. The SAF Championship series advances the top 10% of each field on to regional competition where they will then compete for a berth in the High School National Championship.

Right behind in fourth place was the team of Carter McNeil and Daelyn Whaley of Abbeville High School who also had four fish that weighed in at 12lb 7oz. That weight kept them just ahead of fifth place finishers Trenton Hastings and James Trotter who had three very nice fish that weighed 12lbs 3oz to claim the fifth spot on the leader board.

Rounding out final qualifying spot was the team of Jordon Cole and Benjamin Grice who used a 6lb 3oz beauty to carry them to a 10lb 11oz bag and a trip to Gainesville Georgia where the regional event will be held at Laurel Park on September 26^th.

Special thanks go out to the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Nelson Walker as well as the South Carolina Bass Federation and their president Rich Gerkin who served as bump master for the 62 team event.

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April 26, 2015  by Dan Johnson

Kristopher “KJ” Queen and Tyler Black of the North Carolina Student Angler Federation finished strong to win the 2015 SAF High School Fishing National Championship on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake.

Queen and Black, representing Bandys High School in their hometown of Catawba, N.C., topped a field of the 10 best High School Fishing teams in the two-day competition. They caught 17 pounds, 2 ounces on Saturday to make it to Sunday’s final round of five teams in second place.

Then today, the Tar Heel State’s best backed it up with 17-15 to surpass Oklahoma’s Trevor Yates and Jacob Keenom, the day-one leaders, by 4 pounds, 6 ounces with a two-day total of 35-01.

Queen and Black earned a $10,000 scholarship for their win and were elated at the come-from-behind victory.

“We worked so hard for it. To finally win is amazing,” says Black, a high school junior.

“It’s unbelievable,” adds Queen, a college freshman currently attending Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn., on a fishing scholarship. “This is an awesome feeling.”

Both days of competition, the pair keyed on windy points and docks in relatively clear water, fishing Senko-style soft baits in 4 to 8 feet of water.

“Anywhere the wind was pushing into a dock, we fished Texas-rigged creature baits,” Queen explains.

He notes that they took a “power-finesse” approach to eliminate unproductive docks.

“We fished fairly fast until we found a dock with fish on it, then worked it slow and methodical,” he says.

While their pattern yielded the winning weight, it was far from a cakewalk, especially on day two. Continue reading