Spring has Sprung; Pennington & Arnette Take Titles on a Beautiful Lake Dardanelle

1st Place Team

90 teams traveled to compete in the 2018 Arkansas High School State Championship on May 6 for the titles and the coveted spots in the 2018 National Championship.  Nine teams advance to the national contest held in conjunction with the High School Fishing World Finals, June 26-30 on Pickwick Lake in Florence, Ala.

Anglers were greeted with warm, spring temperatures.  Most anglers found fish shallow in around 3 feet of water and reported a solid bite.  Others even found success “sight fishing.”  Several different baits were used most popular were jigs, plastic creature baits and small square-bill crankbaits.  In total, 24 teams brought five bass limits to the scales.

Topping the field was the Curley Wolves Bass Team of Bryer Pennington and Jack Arnette.  “We got on a good crawling bite on Friday, then dialed it in on Saturday before the tournament,” Pennington said.  “We had a good current coming through the system and it was really setting the fish up like we wanted them to.”

Pennington and Arnette had a limit of bass weighing 19 pounds 3 ounces.   “For us it was all about the angle we showed the fish our bait.  If you didn’t bring your bait at the exact angle they wouldn’t take it.

We had our main spot all to ourselves on tournament day and we capitalized on every bite we had, never loosing a fish.   The fish we caught hit in a 30 minute window during the day, once at 6 -7 a.m. and then again between 10-11am.”

They caught the early bite and hoped all day it was enough for the win.  Turns out it was and both walked away 2018 Arkansas High School State Champions.  Both will advance to the national event this summer.

“We had been looking forward to this tournament since we heard it was on Dardanelle,” Pennington continued.  “Dardanelle has always been a tough lake for us and we were ready to beat it!”

Coming in second was team Gavin; that would be Gavin Webb and Gavin Pennington from the NWA Young Guns.  Team Gavin had a limit of bass weighing 15 pounds 1 ounce.

Big Bass

In third place was the Westside team of Tanner Fife & Tristen Cottrell with 14 pounds 10 ounces.  The NEA Youth Fishing team of Jay Morgan & Cade Gartman took fourth with 14 pounds 8 ounces.  Rounding out the top five were Johnathan Pipkins & Malachi Thornton with 14 pounds 7 ounces.

Big Bass honors went to Jay Morgan & Cade Gartman with a 5-01 pound beauty.  They received two fishing reels for the lunker of the day.

 

 

FULL RESULTS

 

Champy and McKie Make Key Adjustments on Lake Murray for the Win

Chad Champy & Kyler McKie

The 2018 South Carolina High School Fishing State Championship saw 60 boats on Lake Murray April 29 for the annual event.  The top 10% of SAF State Championship and FLW/TBF Open events advance to the 2018 National Championship held in conjunction with the High School Fishing World Finals.  The 2018 HSFWF’s and National Championship events will return to Lake Pickwick, June 26-30 and the top six teams from this event will be amongst the elite.

A cold front came through that shook up the bite and team strategies.  Teams that made quick adjustments to their patterns were the ones that proved successful.  The superior of which, was the North Augusta High School team of Chad Champy and Kyler McKie.

“We had a pattern from practice the day before that showed promising signs of a good day of fishing,” McKie said.  “We had a cold front come through the day of the tournament that shut our pattern down. We planned on throwing topwater baits on main lake schooling points up shallow in 2-4 feet of water. Since that didn’t work out as planned, we had to experiment and try new things to get fish in the boat.”

The team headed to one of their common schooling spots and decided to go deep.  A slow morning instantly turned itself around.  “I tied on a 1 ounce spinnerbait and fished out deeper,” McKie explained. “I started getting a lot of bites and kept hooking up with good 3 pound fish left and right. We culled about 4 or 5 times and finally got all of the little fish out of our limit.”

“We caught our fish out on points on the main lake,” Champy added.  “I slow rolled a ½ ounce spinner bait and that is how we got most of our fish.  We were also able to catch a few on drop shot.  The bite was slow, but we managed to get some good fish throughout the day.”

Champy and McKie took an early lead with a five bass limit weighing 15 pounds 15 ounces, and then they burned up the hot seat.  “We thought we only had 13 or 14 pounds to weigh in, but we were happily surprised when we saw 15-15 go across the scale,” McKie said.  “We were nervous while the other teams weighed in but we stayed in the hot seat until the scales closed and were glad to pull out the win.”

Brandon Jones & James Clutts

Landing second place and a ticket to the national contest, was the Stratford High School fishing team of Brandon Jones and James Clutts.  Jones and Clutts had five bass limit weighing 12 pounds 13 ounces.

“What turned out to be a successful day of fishing started out slow,” Jones said.  “We ran to many points and fished many sorts of lures.  The most prominent bite came off a rattle trap, which we managed to catch four of our biggest fish on. Our final fish came off a Carolina Rig fishing off a rocky point.  We were lucky to finish strong; it was a great experience and we hope to win it all in Alabama!”

 

FULL RESULTS

PHOTO GALLERY

 

FAN 2018 Chase for the Champions Winners!