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

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FAN 2018 Chase for the Champions Winners!

Finley & Jones Win Tennessee High School State Championship

Tyler Finley & Hunter Jones

It was a tough bite on Kentucky Lake as winners were crowned for the 2018 Tennessee High School State Championship.  But, even when bites were hard to come by the Mount Pleasant Tiger team of Tyler Finley & Hunter Jones capitalized on those bites to bring in one of only three five fish limits.

“We had practiced the Saturday before the tournament and found a productive pattern, with him (Jones) breaking his personal best at 6 pounds 2 ounces,” Finley said.

“The morning was slow with a fish every hour but as the day went on they started to become more active.  We had a solid limit by 11am and worked the rest of our day for a big bite.”

Finley and Jones worked until the bitter end, had they  not, they wouldn’t have landed a last minute lunker that sailed them into first with 17 pounds 15 ounces.

“Thirty minutes before weigh-in we pulled up on the right stretch of bushes,” Finley said.  “I flipped into them with the Strike King Bug and she came swimming back out with it; we culled our two pounder out with a 5.9.”

Second place was less than a pound away.  Cody Gregory & Thomas Mathis from Obion County High School  had a five bass limit with 17 pounds 3 ounces.

Finishing third, was another Obion County team of JT McClain & Landon Priest who turned in 14 pounds 3 ounces.  The Crockett County Creek Casters team of Jacob Phillips & Brent Clark finished fourth with 14 pounds.  Rounding out the top five, was the Munford Cougar team of Braden Lewis & Conner McCarver with 11 pounds 5 ounces.

Most teams caught their fish by flipping bushes in the back of the bays.  The water was still fairly high and the majority of teams were catching them in 3-4 feet of water.  The most popular baits of the day were Brush Hogs, jigs, trick worms, spinnerbaits and shallow crankbaits.

Tournament Big Bass – 6lbs

The biggest bass of the day went to JT McClain & Landon Priest with a 6 pound lunker.

These five teams also qualified for the 2018 National Championship to be held in conjunction with the 2018 High School Fishing World Finals  at Pickwick Lake on June 26-30 in Florence, Ala.

Full Results