Cully Scroggins of R.A. Long high school in Longview Washington is finishing his final year on a high note with winning the state championship after signing with Bethel University of Tennessee for a four year bass fishing scholarship.  Nathan Portch a junior at University high school of Spokane was the 2014 Washington Junior State Champion and will have another year to possibly become Washington’s first two time TBF state champion next year.

Pot Holes Reservior was the site this year of the largest number of teams since the inception of the state high school championship. Fourteen teams took to the water with the weather sunny and mild with the water temperatures pushing the fish up shallow to spawn in numbers.

Nathan and Cully along with Nathans dad Jason went deep into the dunes to work beds and site fish in an area they had come across while pre-fishing, a couple of hours in and they were culling to upgrade their weight  to 18.40 when they ran into second place finishers Carl Jackson & Brodie Trapp, 2014 State Champions who were also working bedding fish they too had found in practice in the same part of the lake.

Brodie, Carl and Carl’s dad Jeff ended up within sight of Nathan & Cully the last few hours of their day comparing catches from a distance to see what size fish each were keeping . They ended up second with 17.39.

Little did they know how close they were to being third place?  Brandon Beutler, Blair Peters and his dad Mike had a slow morning and struggled the first part of the day. They cycled a couple of areas  that replenished with fish that were moving up and finished the day with 17.37 just shy of second place and had the big fish of the tournament with a 4.85 large mouth.

Thanks to all our sponsors  Spokane Valley Marine, Lake City Western Vigilantes’, Strike King lures, C & M Trophies, Dobyns Rods, St. Croix,  Jon’s N.W. outdoors,  Cabela’s, Big hawg baits , The Prop Shop, Three rivers marine, interstate batteries, Vicious fishing,  Nixons marine ,KGM baits and the Washington National Guard. All teams weighed fish.

ORDER OF FINISH

Chen and Thomas worked all day to find a limit of bass on the Willamette River. The spring spawn was in full swing on the river. The team had located a bunch of bedded bass in shallow backwaters that was enough for the win. Using a mix of tubes and jigs they were able to catch a 5 fish limit weighing in at 10.71 pounds.

Second place was the team of Tabor Magnuson and Wyatt Garrison of the Yamhill Carlton High Tigers with a 5 fish limit weighing in at 9.54 pounds.

Third place was the team of Logan Degree and Isaac Steigman of the Ridgeview High School Bass Masters with a 5 fish limit weighing in at 8.50 pounds

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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