First place: Landon Myers (left) and Bryson Bailey.
BY DAVE LINK
Six local high school anglers – combining into three, two-person teams – made national history last weekend (Sept. 21-22) by qualifying for the 2024 Bassmaster Team Championship in Monroe, Louisiana, in December.
They’re the first true high school teams to qualify for the Bassmaster Team Championship.
Qualifying were Landon Myers and Bryson Bailey of the Alcoa Fishing Team, Walker LaRue and Jackie Hatfield of the AFT, and Hayden Barnett and Camdyn Cranfill of the Roane County (Kingston) Bass Fishing Team.
Second place: Jackie Hatfield (left) and Walker LaRue.
Third place: Hayden Barnett (left) and Camdyn Cranfill.
They finished first, second, and third, respectively, in the Sept. 21-22 Tennessee Bass Nation’s State Team Championship on Chickamauga Lake in Dayton. Unlike standard TBN high school events, there was no third person serving as boat captain.
For the first time, the top five two-person teams (boats) in the TBN’s high school point standings received entries into the TBN’s State Team Championship, which consists of 50 qualifying boats.
It’s part of the TBN’s push to get more involvement from the younger generation.
And it was quite the weekend for the three high school duos, beating a field of seasoned and veteran anglers for Tennessee’s only three TBN spots in the Bassmaster Team Championship in Louisiana.
“It was a blessing, for sure,” Bailey said.
A big blessing.
MYERS: “UNBELIEVABLE”
“It’s really unbelievable, to be honest with you,” Myers said. “Going into it, we knew that we qualified for that tournament (at Chickamauga), being top five in the state, but when you hear you’ve got three (teams of) high schoolers going into an adult tournament trying to take the top three spots, that doesn’t really sound like that’s going to happen.
“But we all put our heads down and we were able to make it happen. It’s a pretty cool thing to get to go down to Louisiana in December.”
When they go to Louisiana, the three local high school duos will get a chance to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of bass fishing.
“That’d be a dream come true,” Myers said.
But the big thing is going to Louisiana.
Six local high school guys. Fishing against pros they’ve watched on YouTube and television.
“I don’t know who all’s going to be down there,” Myers said. “It could be anybody, but just watching people on YouTube like (Ben) Milliken or even watching Jeff Gustafson win the Classic on Loudon, or watching all those guys just go down and hammer fish, watching Trey McKinney be the youngest pro be the rookie of the year, and then to think that we might fish against them if one of us wins and makes it to the Classic, that’s just something that I never thought I’d be able to do.”
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WINNING AT CHICKAMAUGA
Myers and Bailey overcame some opening day adversity and posted their first tournament victory since beginning their fishing partnership before the 2023-24 season.
Myers was driving the boat when he hit something and broke a blade off his propeller.
“We were stuck fishing one spot,” Myers said of the first day. “We ended up sitting there all day and catching that 15 pounds off it, almost 16 (pounds), and it was mainly a largemouth spot. Then that second day, we didn’t really know what we were going to do.”
Bailey and Myers had the five-bass limit and first place in the standings after Day One with 15.8 pounds.
Bailey caught their big bass of the tournament, a 4.75-pounder on the first day.
“I caught it on a drop shot (rig),” Bailey said. “I felt weight, and when I was fighting it, I thought it was a catfish because I could feel it rolling on my line. Then it came up and it was a big one. I was a little surprised.”
On the second day – after replacing the broken prop with a spare — they had the five-bass limit weighing 11.33 pounds, including a 3.05-pounder. Most were spotted bass.
“We started on that spot we caught that 15 pounds off of (Day One),” Myers said. “We caught three there real fast, and then they were just gone. We knew that we were going to have to make a change, and we ended up going almost to the dam on the lower end of Lake Chickamauga, and we had a school of 2-pounders down there, and that’s where we finished out our limit and ended up culling a few times.”
Tyler Mason and Corbin Borstein of South Central Bass had the big bag of Day Two (five bass, 15.13 pounds, including a 5.02-pounder), and Barnett and Cranfill’s five-bass bag weighed 14.34 pounds, including a 4.17 pounder.
“I figured it would take at least 18 (pounds) a day to win,” Bailey said. “I didn’t think we would have any shot, honestly.”
Their two-day winning weight was 27.13 pounds.
LaRue and Hatfield’s two-day weight was 23 pounds, ahead of third-place Barnett and Cranfill (22.52 pounds), fourth-place Eli Stevenson and Jeff Stevenson of South Central Bass (22.37 pounds) and fifth-place Mason and Borstein (20.74 pounds).
As weigh-ins concluded, Bailey and Myers began celebrating – along with LaRue and Hatfield and Cranfill and Barnett.
“It was awesome,” Bailey said. “I didn’t know what to think, honestly.”
It meant a trip to Louisiana, bass fishing against some of the best.