First day of the Bassmasters Junior National Championship on Carroll County 1000 Acres Lake in Tennessee, was a foggy morning. We were the 53rd out of 54 boats to takeoff. Not the best boat number, but it was going to be nice on day two when we are boat number two. Day 1, didn’t turn out like we wanted it to with catching only 4 keepers for 3lbs 3oz. We had to adjust to the conditions to catch what we did. One keeper was caught on schooling bass that came up on us. Nick was able to catch one on a spinnerbait and later in the day one on a senko, but it wasn’t a keeper. Most of the fish were caught on a tube on a windy shallow bar. Kyle did loose one 3 pounder that could have made a big difference. Being a very tight tournament, losing a quality fish was huge. It was the only decent bite we had during the event.
Day two we started on a hump with seven other boats. Using the Motorguide Ultex anchor was very handy. I anchored us down, and we stayed in the area for 5 hours catching 4 keepers and 5 non-keepers. Kyle was throwing big baits like Bullworm and 6″ Senko. While Nick was throwing smaller baits on a Carolina Rig like baby brush hog, Centipede and Finesse worm. We just couldn’t get a big bite. There has been some huge bass caught off this hump during the practices days. So I figured if we fished it hard, maybe we could get one big bite and it would make a huge difference in the standing. Never could get the bite. In the last hour, Kyle was able to catch one more small keeper to finish our limit. Nick andK Kyle finished the tournament in 34th place with 7lbs 13oz.
I was so proud of the twins for fishing offshore with a Carolina rig and big worms trying to catch a quality fish. It was their first time fishing a Carolina rig, and they caught most of their fish on it. They have learned so much from fishing this event and tournaments this year. The biggest lesson was how to be patient and not to worry about people around them catching fish. We had a boat right next to us in this tournament, and they never got upset. They just kept fishing. We watched guys catch fish around us in this event, and they would just go on with their business. Thank you everyone for your support. Shout out to Kansas Bass Nation for all the support and making this possible. Carroll County and BASS for putting the event on for the kids. It was awesome to see so many kids with smiles.