Hello fellow anglers, families, and friends. SJA hopes everyone had a great holiday season and wishes Happy New Year to all! The Seminole Junior Anglers just finished fishing their 4th tournament of the season on Lake Okeechobee at the beginning of December. As always, the “Big O” produced some bigger bags. Saturday 12/9 was a little struggle as the weather was trying to decide if it was going to be hot or cold and rain or not. The fish were not sure where they wanted to be, and it was a struggle to find them. Our best finishing team was Hayden Wolf and Landon Myers (both freshman). They were able to put 5 in the boat with 13.69 lbs., placing 21st for the day out of about 125 boats, the best for our SJA teams on Saturday. Sunday 12/10 the weather started to warm up and stabilize then the fish started biting. The first team to land a big one was Brady Biles and Patrick Bartolotta landing a solid 7.5lbs fish earlier in the day ending up in 5th place with 18.73 lbs. and our best finish for the day! Coach Troy Bennett had the pleasure of filming Ben Brackett and James Crews team land an 8.6 lb. monster, finishing 13th with 15.95lbs. Lastly, team Nathan Bennett and Carter Burdette landed a 5.1 lb. fish with a total weight of 16.23 lbs. finishing 12th for the day. It was truly a great day on the water bringing in fat bags for the SJA Teams. The Florida Bass Nation Fall trail came to an end in Okeechobee and we are proud of teams Bartolotta/Biles and Crews/Brackett teams punching their ticket to the State tournament this coming summer in Bainbridge, GA on Lake Seminole!
Come Fish with the SJA club! We are holding our annual fundraiser tournament February 24th on Lake Monroe with weigh-in starting at 2:30 pm hosted by Boat Tree Marina, Sanford. There will be a guaranteed $1500 1st place payout (35 boats minimum) along with 2nd and 3rd place payout and Big Fish. There will also be lots of giveaways, raffles, plus great prizes, and food. $125 per boat entry and all the proceeds go towards the club’s expenses for our qualifying teams that are headed to the Nationals in August. Please mark it on your calendar and come support these young anglers. Email seminolejunioranglers@gmail.com to register and lock in your boat launch number.
We cannot do this without sponsors! Coastal Angler Magazine Orlando, Avid Sportswear, Mudhole Custom Tackle, Accurate Fence, Grove Scientific and Engineering Co, Mullinax Ford, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Oakley – If you have a young angler, and they would like to fish with our club, please contact Troy Bennett 321- 303-0650 for info about joining us for next season.
