State Championship Wrap Up – High Rock Lake – May 15/16, 2021
Story By: Chris Corriher
With four National Championship berths on the line, thirty-nine High School and eleven Junior Series teams arrived at High Rock Lake for the main event of the 2020-21 season. Ninety-eight anglers and their boat captains blasted off in search of the chunky largemouth bass High Rock Lake is known for.
On Day One, there were two Junior teams that found the right size bass to push for the win. The Mayberry Anglers team of Troy Watson and Shockley Hiatt brought in four solid bass weighing 9.90 pounds to claim the State Champions title for the Junior Series! They were awarded the State Champion plaques, tackle packs from Denver Tackle and Academy gift cards. With the win, they will receive an invitation to the Junior National Championships.
The Bear Creek Anglers team of Cason Redwine and Bo Helms finished a close second place with three fish that weighed in at 9.38 pounds! They took home the State runner-up plaques, Academy gift cards, and will also receive invitations to the Junior National Championships. The Riley’s Catch team of Jack Smith and Luke Bramhall won the third-place plaques with two fish weighing 5.65 pounds.
In the High School Division, day one was dominated by the McDowell team of Dawson Bartlett and Cole Weaver. The showed up to the scales with the heaviest weight (thus far) of the year, a five fish limit weighing 15.58 pounds! Second place after day one was a limit of 13.71 pounds weighed in by brothers Max and Mike Pierlott from Riley’s Catch. Fishing proved tough for many teams and it took only 4.96 pounds to make the Top 20 and the invitation to fish on Day 2.
Day Two began entirely different from the first day as clouds rolled in and there were scattered showers early. More reports of tough fishing were heard early in the day, but right after lunch, we started to hear about an afternoon bite for some teams.
The first team to make some noise was the RoCo Anglers team of Hayden Hammond and Zach McNeely who brought a nice 14.26-pound limit to the scales. They set the total weight to beat bar at 24.11 pounds. Several teams fell short of that mark before Garrett Christy and Jake Ross (RoCo Anglers) dropped the new heaviest limit of the year onto the scales weighing 16.43 pounds! That raised the total to beat to an impressive 27.88 pounds.!
Next up were the Pierlott brothers whose five fish limit looked very similar to their day one catch. They were looking for 13.98 pounds to take over the lead. Their five weighed in at 13.71 pounds giving them a two-day total of 27.62 pounds, only 0.26 behind first! First day leaders Bartlett and Weaver could bring only four fish to the scales and settled for third place overall with 24.45 pounds.
When all calculations were in, the 2021 State Champions are Garrett Christy and Jake Ross! They received State Champions plaques, Lew’s KVD rods, and Water Wood Custom Baits for their efforts. Max and Mike Pierlott are the State runner-up team, and they took home Shimano SLX rods, Water Wood Custom Baits, and the Runner-Up plaques. Both teams will receive automatic invitations to the High School National Championship to be held at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee!
Bartlett and Weaver won the third-place plaques and Water Wood Custom Baits. Finishing fourth were Hammond and McNeely who took home Academy Outdoors gift cards. The fifth-place team was Ty Allison and Three Young from McDowell High school who also took home gift cards from Academy.
Our points champions are Hunter Keller and Daniel Brackett from Freedom High, and in a very tight battle, second place winners are Dawson Bartlett and Cole Weaver from McDowell High school. Both should receive invitations to the National Championships as soon as our trail results are approved by BASS.
The big fish of the first day was a beautiful 5.53-pound largemouth landed by the Junior Series team of Levi Graham and Aden Blalock. They won a great tackle pack from Bob Bauer. On the second day, Ben Bauer and Preston Venable brought in a nice 6.20 pound largemouth that was the biggest fish of the two days. The High Rock giant fell victim to a wacky rigged worm.
As always, we would like to thank our sponsors: Academy Outdoors, Denver Tackle, Goosehead Insurance, Skyline Marine, Water Wood Custom Baits, and Woods to Water Outdoor Company. And we need to give a shoutout to the volunteers who helped with the tournament: Todd Bare, Heath Fesperman, Ethen Fesperman, Bryson Perry and Todd Alexander and all the usual clean-up crew who got us loaded up and headed home very quickly!
We would also like to thank the parents, grandparents, friends, and boat captains. Without your support and dedication, this would not be possible. A big shout-out and thank you also goes to the teachers, advisors, club captains, etc. who organized teams and supported them throughout the year. We believe we had a successful 2020-21 year and are looking forward to the future. Thank you all!
