The Hawgs sent the Duo of Braden and Nathan to compete in the Bassmaster High School National Championship held on Lake Chickamauga. The Tourney was held July 29-31, 2021 with three days of practice ahead of the tourney days. The hottest weather of the summer was happening in the Tennessee valley during the tourney with temperatures pushing 95 and 110 heat index nearly every day there. Days one and two of the tourney included the entire field of over 300 boats with the field cut down to 12 teams competing on championship saturday. The tournament was setup as a 3-fish limit tourney to help reduce fish stress during the heat of the summer.
The fishing turned out to be tough for our duo but they stuck with it and grinded. They found some fish in various areas of the lake but didn’t really tap into a pattern that was working reliably. The first day of competition Braden and Nathan were able to put three keepers in the boat including their last fish in the last few minutes before check-in to start out day one with 6#-3oz. Day two brought some clouds in morning with a few showers but the boys were not able to get on any keeper fish and they finished the tourney with the 6#-3oz total. Super proud of their effort and keeping their head in it. They learned a lot and will have a much better feel for Chick on their next visit there.
Congrats to the winning team that weighed in an astounding 45#-6 oz for their nine fish over three days including their final day bag over 20#’s for 3 fish. Chick definitely still has some big ones!
Big thanks to Karl Guegold for captaining the boys for the week. Also thanks to Ohio Bass Nation and Bassmaster. Running an event with 300+ boats takes a lot of work and they did a real nice job. Below are links to Bassmaster’s coverage of the event and also a link to the final results.
2021 Bassmaster High School Championship Coverage
2021 Bassmaster HS Championship Final Results
Below are some pictures and videos from the week with captions. Click on any image to view full size.