Fishing was tough on a hot summer day at Brookville Lake in Indiana. But that did not discourage all of the High School anglers as they set out on the water to try and capture the title of Indiana State Champions. Judd Linette and Gabriel Verkamp brought in a nice limit that weighed 11-12 pounds to secure the win and also qualify them for the SAF High School National Championship in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

They anchored their limit with the Lew’s Big Bass of the event which was a 3-04 pounder. That fish earned them a pair of Lew’s Reels.

Chase Fleenor and David Edwards form Scottsburg High School Finished second with 9-11 pounds.

The “wise” team of Maximus Wise and Wyatt Wise took third with 8-10 pounds.

Fourth placed belonged to Allison Zollman and Ethan Campbell with 8-00 pounds and the Indian Creek team of Trent Volz and Blayden Mann took fifth with 7-14 pounds.

Anglers were targeting rocks and bigger chunk rocks along the shoreline and shady docks if five to eight feet of water with Ned Rigs, Shakey heads, Senkos and jigs to catch a lot of their fish. Several anglers also reported catching a lot of fish of a variety of topwater baits early in the morning, as clouds and a little rain moved through the area.
For all the pictures of this event CLICK HERE

A good day on the water resulted in a victory for the Hartley Hawg team of Nathan Fiant and Tristan Rausch as they laid 14-14 pounds on the scale on Saturday’s weigh in.

Fishing out of Alum Creek, the pair also took home the Lew’s Big Bass award of two Lew’s reels for a lunker that weighed 4-13 pounds.

The New Lexington High School team of Carson Kellogg and Timothy Fulk claimed second place with a good limit weighing 13-01 pounds.

Braden Fairbanks and Grant Masterson from the Hartley Hawgs took third as they finished with 11-09 pounds.

Mitch Johnson and Austin Sears finished fourth with 10-13 pounds and Ian Reed and Mason Everts placed fifth with 10-11 pounds. A total of 49 teams participated with 44 of them weighing in fish.

After talking with several of the anglers as they weighed their fish, most of them caught their fish up shallow on spinnerbaits, jigs, swimbaits, square bill crankbaits and Texas rigged worms. A total of four teams qualified for the upcoming SAF High School Fishing National Championship coming up June 24-27 out of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

For all the photos from this event CLICK HERE

Originally the Washington State Championship was to be held on March 21st on Lake Washington in the heart of Seattle. However with the COVID-19 virus placing the world in quarantine and Seattle being the epicenter of the outbreak the State Championship had to be postponed until further notice.

Fortunately a glimmer of hope and normalcy was granted to large portions of the state of Washington and Troy Roberts, Washington State TBF Youth Director was able to relocate the State Championship to Moses Lake.  A location that would be suitable to conduct what would be the last high school state championship for some seniors and teams as well as just in time to advance a team to the High School National Championship.

The weather tried to put things in a halt position even before the event got started. The day before, high wind warnings were put into effect with sustained winds of 25-27 mph and gusts up to 35-50 mph. The winds were ripping all night long before the event, however the morning came and mother nature gave us a break. Turned out to be a nice, slightly overcast morning with a little breeze but perfect fishing weather, and the teams showed up with excitement and anticipation.

The teams blasted off and put their abilities to the test to see who could come back with the biggest bags. There was a lot of excitement because there was a full moon and the big fish were biting.

When the weigh-in came, so did the weather but that did not stop the teams from bringing some quality bags of fish.

As the wind and rain started to come down so did the team of Wade Wilkens and Blake Yates, with an incredible bag of largemouth weighing in at 21 lb. 2 oz. And anchoring that bag was a marsh donkey weighing in at 5 lb. 6 oz.

2nd place team, and newcomers to high school bass fishing was Logan Clark and Parker Jones weighed in a stout bag of smallie’s anchored with a 4 lb. 5 oz largemouth for a total weight of 16 lb. 3 oz.
It was an impressive bag for their first ever high school fishing event.

3rd place team and 2019 Washington State HS Champions, Blake Williams and Ty Manterola weighed in a mixed bag of Largemouth and smallmouth anchoring the bag with a 3.04 lb. Largemouth with total weight of 14 lb. 3 oz.

Thank you to all the volunteers, participants and boat captains that made this event possible.