Hello fellow anglers and friends, happy spring! We have two tournaments to report on and they were both big ones. Every year the B.A.S.S. High School and Junior division puts on four open tournaments for anglers registered with their program. The first one to report was held on Clarks Hill Lake just north of Augusta GA. We only had one team enter as registration fills up very fast. Nathan Bennett and Carter Burdette along with Troy Bennett as boat captain made the trip up on the Wednesday before the Sunday February 4th tournament. They practiced Thursday through Saturday trying to figure out a whole new way of fishing and how to catch the spotted bass which are known for the area. Sunday morning, they launched in 38-degree weather with 280 other teams from all over the country and put their practice to work. Even when our steering went out on the boat that morning, they managed to catch 12 pounds and finish in 15th place out of all the high school anglers. With the top 10% finish, they punched their ticket to the B.A.S.S. High School National tournament which is still TBA on location but held in early August.
After a short-lived celebration, the SJA club all headed south to the Big O, Lake Okeechobee in Clewiston for their 6th tournament of the season and second report here. Lake Okeechobee usually fishes well and produces big bags so we expected to have a typical big bite. Saturday went a little unexpected with smaller bags. The best SJA bag from Patrick Bartolotta and Brady Biles with almost 11 pounds finishing 45th out of 130 teams. Sunday was your typical Big O bags with 14 teams bringing in over 20 pounds and the top team weighing in at 29.53 lbs. Team Carter Burdette and Nathan Bennett had our best finish at 16.9 pounds placing 25th out of 130 teams.
We head to Palatka for our next tournament March 2nd and 3rd and hope to find the fish on the ever so challenging St Johns River. As always, we could not do it without or sponsors! Our title sponsors; Coastal Angler Magazine, Avid Sportswear, Mudhole Custom Tackle, Accurate Fence, Grove Scientific and Engineering Co, Mullinax Ford, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Bitters Baits and Oakley! Thanks to all our sponsors – we hope to see you on the water! If you have a young angler, and they would like to fish with Seminole Junior Anglers, please call Troy Bennett 321.303.0650 about joining us for next season.
