Brody Bible (right) holds the trophy largemouth alongside co-angler Sawyer Mynatt.
BY DAVE LINK
Karns Middle School seventh-grader Brody Bible didn’t know what bit his Chatterbait on Nickajack Lake during the Tennessee Bass Nation’s Southeast Division trail stop Feb. 22.
Neither did his boat captain, Don Bible, who’s Brody’s dad.
Nor did Brody’s co-angler with Karns Junior Bass, good friend Sawyer Mynatt, also a seventh grader at Karns Middle.
“It was just kind of dead weight,” Brody recalled. “I didn’t really know what it was.”
It pulled deeper into the waters of Nickajack Lake. Then Brody gained some line, moving it a little toward the surface.
“I knew he had a big one, but I wasn’t sure if it was a bass or not,” Don Bible said.
Mynatt was stunned, watching.
“His rod was like bending almost halfway,” Mynatt said. “He couldn’t really get it up to the boat.”
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Brody Bible kept pulling. The fish kept digging.
Then Don Bible saw something.
“When he hooked it, he was having a hard time getting it close to the boat,” Don said, “so when it came up, it came up a little bit, I saw a silhouette of it 3 or 4 feet down, and I saw it was a giant fish.
“At that point, I realized why he was having such a hard time getting it in. It was going to be the biggest fish of his life.”
It turned out to be a trophy largemouth weighing 10.84 pounds.
A monster bass.
“I never thought I would catch a fish that big,” Brody said.
And it carried Bible and Mynatt to the middle school division’s championship of the TBN event, held at Nickajack’s Marion County Park just west of Chattanooga off Interstate 24.
Their winning bag consisted of five largemouth weighing 24.8 pounds – which would have given them a fourth-place finish in the high school division.
Bible and Mynatt’s winning wasn’t a fluke. They almost won their previous tournament, finishing runner-up on the TBN’s Bass Pro Shops trail stop Nov. 2 on Cherokee Lake. They’ve fished three tournaments this season.
“We were pretty confident because we just got second on Cherokee,” Mynatt said. “We’ve done a lot of practice, and the practice definitely helped.”
Don Bible has seen his son and best buddy practicing. Mynatt and Brody Bible started tournament bass fishing last year, and the most keepers they caught during a live event was two.
“They’ve been going to Melton Hill Lake a few nights a week, and also practicing casting in the front yard,” Don Bible said. “They’ve committed to getting a lot better from last year to this year. They’re definitely on a good roll this year.”
Brody’s giant largemouth certainly helped matters.
The Tennessee State record for a largemouth bass is 15 pounds, 3 ounces, caught by Gabe Keen on Chickamauga Lake on Feb. 13, 2015.
Brody’s wasn’t that far off it.
“He’s caught some big fish saltwater fishing, but nothing like that freshwater,” Don Bible said. “A nearly 11 pounder is really, really rare in East Tennessee, super rare.”
Lincoln Snyder and Curren Malinchak of Soddy-Daisy Junior Bass finished second in the middle school division with two bass weighing 8.67 pounds, including a 5.25-pounder. Parker Smith and Carson Randan of Scotts Hill Junior Bass were third with three bass weighing 7.37 pounds.
BARNETT: ‘BIGGEST BAG EVER’
Hayden Barnett and Camdyn Cranfill of Kingston Bass Fishing won the high school division on Nickajack with five bass weighing 27.67 pounds, including an 8.5-pounder caught by Cranfill.
“That bag’s not really normal anywhere, honestly,” Barnett said. “That’s the biggest bag I’ve ever had bass fishing in general. I haven’t ever caught that much. It was a special day.
It’s been a special few weeks for Barnett, a senior at Kingston High.
He recently signed with Carson-Newman, joining a highly touted 2025 class at one of the nation’s top collegiate bass fishing programs.
“I’m excited to get up there,” Barnett said. “I know most of the boys that fish up there, and they’re No. 1 in the country right now. The class that’s coming in, it’s a really, really strong group.”
Cranfill is a junior at Kingston and another highly successful angler. He and Barnett overcame some mechanical problems on Nickajack – they had to borrow a battery for their trolling motor from Alcoa’s Jackie Hatfield – and turned it into a big day.
“We swapped those (batteries) out and went fishing,” Barnett said. “On my GoPro we videoed the whole day. We culled seven times and caught 27 bass. It was one of the best size-days I’ve ever had, not even just the 27 pounds. Just all the solid ones we caught.”
Owens fished by himself for Karns Bass Fishing and finished second, although Clayton Kelley was listed as his partner. Owens had five bass weighing 25.77 pounds.
Mason Taylor and Wesley Kent of DeKalb Fishing were third (five bass, 25.33 pounds, 9.31 pounder), ahead of fourth-place Rex Reagan and Brayden Scott of Pickett County (five bass, 23.9 pounds), and fifth-place Barrett Newton and Landon Krauss of Upperman (five bass, 21.97 pounds).