The Student Angler Federation held the Early Bird Open on Clarks Hill Lake at Wildwood park this past weekend.  There were several local teams as well as several other states represented in the event.  With a rapid weather pattern developing for Saturday afternoon, the anglers knew it was important to catch their fish as soon as they could Saturday morning.

The North Augusta Fishing Team of Hunter Temples and Vernon Reynolds claimed victory with a nice limit that weighed 18-06 pounds.  They caught most of their fish from two to six feet of water fishing jigs around cover.

Second place went to Ryan Ingalls and Jordan Carlie from Greenbriar Fishing Team with a limit that weighed 15-04 pounds.

Third place belonged to another North Augusta Fishing Team of Kyler Murray and Wil Ravenscroft with 14-15 pounds.

Completing the top five places were the teams of Bryant Hodge and Christopher Shay with 14-11 and Carson Palmer and Harrison McCall with 14-08 pounds.

Several teams brought good limits to the scales and the field was about split between teams fishing shallow verses teams fishing deep.  Several teams reported fishing docks and rocky banks in two to eight feet of water, using flukes, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits and Texas rigged worms to catch their fish.  Other teams were saying that they were catching their fish in water from twenty to forty foot deep on A-Rigs, drop shots and Carolina Rigs around brush piles and other deep cover.

The top three teams qualified for the High School Fishing National Championship which is set for June 30-July 3 at Lake Hartwell in Anderson South Carolina later this summer. For complete results for this event click HERE and a full group of pictures can be seen on our SAF High School Fishing Facebook page.

With early morning temperatures in the upper thirties and nearly a two-hour fog delay, the anglers at the Florida SAF High School State Championship were facing a lot of hurdles in order to catch their limit before the afternoon weigh-in.  After the fog delay, most teams were scrambling as they had lost their early morning bite and the tide was changing right as we let them take-off.  But when we came to the Welaka City park for weigh in, several teams brought in nice bags of fish.

Parker Stalvey & Jacob Deel, from Clay High School, won the event with a limit that weighed 11.06 pounds.

Second and third place were separated by only one ounce as the Seminole Jr Anglers team of Makenzie & Dalton Bailey took second with 6.11 and the Quincy High School team of Brent Johns and Jacob Burdick finished third with 6.10 pounds.

The Lew’s Big Bass of the day on the St Johns River went to the team of Shane & Ethan Jones with a nice 4.03 lunker.  They received two Lew’s reels for their efforts.

The top two teams from this event qualified for the upcoming SAF National Championship and High School Fishing World Finals at Lake Hartwell on June 30-July 3, 2021.  You can see the results from this event at www.highschoolfishing.org and all of the pictures can be found by clicking HERE.

A great field of 120 teams turned out for the first ever Georgia High School Association tournament at Lake Seminole.  Schools from all across Georgia came down to Bainbridge to fish on this great fishery.  The lake did not disappoint, as it took right at ten pounds to make the qualifying cut to go to the GHSA Finals in May at Lake Lanier.

The Bainbridge team of Bowynn Brown and Shane Dill walked away as champions with a monster weight of 25.15 pounds.

The second-place finishers were Storm Clark and Nash Fox from Harris County High School with 19.14 pounds.Carter Koza and John Thomason, from Mount Paran Christian School, took third place with a nice 17.13 limit.Fourth belonged to The Buford High School team of Emilee Akins and Peyton Rinker with 16.00 pounds. Rounding out the top five was another Bainbridge team of Garyn King and Garrett Cox with 15.06 pounds.

Most of the teams reported catching their fish in less than five feet of water.  Some were sight fishing while others were targeting any wood cover or rocky banks and some were just fishing down the banks looking for feeding fish.  Jigs, Texas rigged worms, Chatterbaits, Senkos, Flukes, and Jerkbaits all produced fish during the event.

There will be a total of four GHSA events scheduled for 2021 with the Finals set for May 8 at Lake Lanier.  At each qualifying event the top 15 teams will advance to the finals, regardless of the field size.  However, if the field is over 100 teams, then one more team is invited for every ten teams past 100.  So, with 120 teams at the first event, we were able to qualify 17 teams for the finals in May.  The remaining GHSA schedule looks like this:  February 13 at West Point, March 20 at Lake Oconee and April 10 at Hartwell.  Georgia anglers can find these events and Register at www.highschoolfishing.org.  The final results from each event will also be posted there and you can find all the photos from every event on our Student Angler Federation Facebook page.