The Greatest Bass Fishing in America Is Taking place on the Faculty Circuit

That’s a mark, Dylan Fogarty thought as he got here tight to a different smallmouth. After releasing the bass, the school senior saved the deep-water level on his GPS graph and fired off a textual content to his teammate, Hunter Fillmore, who was fishing on Kentucky Lake’s far north finish. They had been on a divide-and-conquer mission, and with a match simply 36 hours away, the 2 fishermen representing Bethel College had loads of water to cowl.

Because the afternoon wore on, Fogarty and Fillmore dialed in on a sample. Pre-spawn smallies had been staging offshore within the present, and so they’d discovered larger fish north of Paris, which lies simply down the street from Bethel’s campus in McKenzie, Tennessee. The 2 knew having the home-court benefit wouldn’t be sufficient to hold a win — not when going up in opposition to lots of of the nation’s prime school anglers.

However they did get a morale increase that day within the type of John Garrett, a Bethel legend who graduated in 2019 after serving to lead the workforce to back-to-back Nationwide Championships. As a result of whereas Fogarty, Fillmore, and the remainder of the school groups had been busy practice-fishing on April 15 this spring, Garrett was down in Florida clinching his first Bassmaster Elite Sequence win. After main all three days on the Harris Chain of Lakes, Garrett grew to become the second rookie this season to carry up the blue trophy.

“We’d been watching it stay all day in our boats, so we got here again to campus and everybody’s feeling assured,” Fogarty says. “With the ability to watch guys like that, who had been actually my inspiration to fish in school, and seeing them compete at that top degree. It simply offers this additional confidence increase, like: Hey, perhaps I can do that, too.”

It’s this optimistic and aggressive spirit that’s fueled the regular progress of faculty bass fishing in recent times. There are actually 1000’s of pupil anglers competing within the sport. Dynasties are being constructed, scholarships are on the desk, and every match brings each the promise of a payday and the possibility to make a reputation on a nationwide stage. 

This week, 130 of the top-ranked two-man groups within the nation will compete within the Bassmaster Faculty Nationwide Championships on Lake Hartwell. The profitable workforce there’ll routinely qualify for the head-to-head Faculty Traditional competitors and an opportunity to fish the granddaddy of all bass fishing tournaments in 2025: the Bassmaster Traditional.

As these school circuits have grown, attracting wide-eyed high-schoolers from across the nation, they’ve develop into the final word proving grounds for skilled bass fishing. In fact, getting a university diploma is a part of the draw and a few pupil anglers don’t have aspirations to go professional after commencement. However most of those youngsters? They’re right here to win.

Blast Off

It’s barely mild out, and the marina at Paris Touchdown is lit up crimson and inexperienced by the lots of of navigation lights reflecting off the water. Even standing on dry land close to the docks, I can really feel the large 250s rumbling underfoot. I acknowledge just a few of the brightly-colored bass boats from gawking at them on trailers earlier: those with customized wraps, college logos, and the anglers’ names emblazoned on the perimeters. Most of those sparkly water rockets price greater than I’ll make in a yr, and every child behind the wheel is at the very least 10 years youthful than I’m.

Because the Star-Spangled Banner performs over the loudspeakers, I’m surrounded by dad and mom, siblings, girlfriends, and grandpas. Just a few coaches maintain ball caps over their hearts, some beating sooner than others. After a bunch prayer, the boats line as much as idle previous the dock for a security examine after which on previous the channel marker. One after one other in a randomly ordered line, their bows rise to the sky as they blast off into the primary lake.

I watch as Fogarty and Fillmore cross by in a shiny red-and-black Vexus. They’re adopted by a child rocking a mullet, who’s operating an 80s-era Bass Tracker with an previous Johnson hanging off the again. Even because it appears misplaced, it’s a reminder that underneath all of the branded logos, the sponsorships, and the seriousness is a straightforward previous time that’s speculated to be enjoyable.

Someplace in the midst of the pack is a College of Montevallo boat that was trailered up from Alabama. Onboard are Easton Fothergill and Nick Dumke, and though no one can see the targets, I do know they’re there: two bullseyes on the again of their jerseys. The defending Workforce of the Yr is poised for a three-peat after profitable the final two tournaments they fished, and Fothergill’s nonetheless driving excessive from a top-20 end at the Bassmaster Traditional in March.

Placing alongside just a few boats behind them is one other pair of tall, clean-cut anglers from Montevallo, juniors Blair Erickson and Jackson Pontius. And whereas all 4 of the blokes is likely to be buddies on campus, the 2 juniors are simply as keen as the remainder of the pack to knock off Dumke and Fothergill. 

After making a brief run to a shell bar simply 500 yards from the marina, Pontius pulls out a rod rigged with a 3/16-ounce tube. He hooks a bass on his first forged.  

The Rise of Faculty Bassin’

The match on Kentucky Lake marked the second cease on the Legends Path of the 2024 Bassmaster Faculty Sequence. Over the course of two days in mid-April, 216 two-man groups (just a few fished solo) competed for the heaviest mixed luggage of 5 bass. And people luggage weren’t mild.

“Once you speak about school fishing, you’re speaking about the most effective younger fishermen within the nation. These younger women and men are the long run professionals that we’ll be watching on TV,” BASS match supervisor Glenn Cale tells Out of doors Life. “You possibly can see it within the Elite Sequence. I feel seven of the 9 guys who superior final yr had been school anglers, and proper now one of many guys main the entire pack is Easton Fothergill.”

A former umpire within the MLB, Cale attracts comparisons between right this moment’s up-and-coming school anglers and the AA minor league ball gamers who’re on their approach to the large leagues.

“Once you’re watching AA ball anyplace on this nation, you’re watching the long run big-league gamers,” he says. “That’s the place the most effective baseball is performed.”

Cale says that as the game continues to develop on the school degree, BASS is seeing a 15 to twenty p.c uptick in functions yearly from younger anglers who need to compete. There’s additionally been a rise within the variety of feminine opponents. This led the group to develop its match collection to a two-division format this yr. Even then, Cale says, the divisions stuffed in a matter of minutes, with 1,000 anglers registering for the 2 match trails.  

And the BASS circuit, which shaped in 2006, is only one of some school fishing leagues in America right this moment. After merging with Fishing League Worldwide in 2019, Main League Fishing has constructed up its personal school league. This helped develop the game past the Southeastern U.S., the place BASS is rooted, and it opened the door for much more college students to compete. (There aren’t any guidelines in opposition to competing in a number of leagues, so a lot of right this moment’s school groups fish a couple of circuit.)

Importantly, these leagues aren’t acknowledged by the NCAA, so school fishing packages operate as membership sports activities. This implies the anglers can hunt down sponsors, and so they can win cash, gear, and different prizes within the tournaments. The primary-place examine for the Kentucky Lake match was simply over $5,000, which isn’t precisely chump change however is a far cry from the Traditional, which pays out $300,000 to the winner. 

Nonetheless, the professionals who’ve been by the school wringer say these monetary incentives are an necessary a part of the expertise. As a result of on the finish of the day, professional bass fishing is a paper chase, and each skilled angler is a small enterprise unto themselves. 

“It’s simply not financially savvy to chase fish across the nation. Moreover, what’s extra necessary than catching fish in our business is the enterprise facet of it,” says Elite Sequence professional John Garrett, who majored in enterprise administration at Bethel and runs a duck looking outfit in the course of the offseason. “Issues like model loyalty and studying the right way to promote your self could seem tremendous apparent, however you truly put them into play while you’re in school and fishing for a membership.”

The cash flows each methods, too. Extra viewers and followers imply extra {dollars} for match organizers and the manufacturers that sponsor them. In the meantime, a handful of universities have capitalized on the game’s progress by hiring full-time coaches and funding their very own fishing packages. Bethel College began this development when it employed Garry Mason, a profession looking and fishing information and outside persona, as America’s first-ever school bass fishing coach. And in 2009, Mason established the nation’s first scholarship program for the game of bass fishing. He says the ultimate piece got here just a few years later, when BASS launched the Excessive College Sequence and created a recruiting pipeline for future school anglers.  

“At first I simply needed to recruit youngsters from across the space whose fathers or grandfathers I knew, however I assume it labored out fairly effectively,” Mason tells Out of doors Life. “So 2011 and 2012 had been actually massive years for us, and by the point we acquired to 2018, we sort of had the dream workforce of faculty fishing.”

The wins stored coming. And with greater than a dozen nationwide titles cementing its legacy, the comparatively obscure college of fewer than 3,000 college students has develop into a rip-lipping powerhouse. Mason says six Bethel alumni are actually fishing professionally, with much more graduates holding jobs within the bigger outside business.

Different schools — largely smaller, personal universities with cash to burn — have adopted swimsuit, bringing on their very own head coaches and devoting college funding to fishing packages. Right now, at the very least 20 universities supply some type of tutorial scholarships for bass fishing. (A typical scholarship at Bethel will cowl a couple of third of the general tuition price, which is greater than $40,000 a yr.)

These school-funded packages supply a significant benefit in tournaments over conventional membership groups, that are run and funded solely by college students. Universities like Bethel assist pupil anglers financially by protecting match prices and journey bills, and so they assist join these college students with potential sponsors. Some faculties even have wrapped vehicles and workforce boats value upwards of six figures.

These investments are inclined to repay; eight of the ten top-ranked groups within the Bassmaster Faculty Bracket come from school-funded packages. However the actual reward is the status these trophies deliver again to campus. Colleges like Bethel and Montevallo are actually recruiting magnets for younger outdoorsmen and -women. Mason says he’s heard from excessive schoolers in dozens of various states, and he even acquired an inquiry final yr from a young person in South Africa. Everybody is raring to get on the workforce.

Getting Schooled

Stopping at one in all their identified spots on day two of the match, Fogarty will get in place whereas Fillmore takes management of the LiveScope unit on the bow. He stares down on the display screen by blue polarized lenses, his face shaded from the solar by the light-weight camo hoodie draped over his cap. 

“Ten o’clock,” he says earlier than casting out an enormous swimbait. “Forty toes down and arising.”

Just a few cranks on the reel retains his bait above and in entrance of the fish, and the blip on the display screen briefly rises earlier than dropping again down. However Fillmore can nonetheless make out at the very least a dozen bronzebacks hanging nearer the lake backside, so he pivots the bow with the trolling motor whereas Fogarty throws a tube bait towards the varsity. A fish hits the lure on the drop and he leans into the hookset to bury it.

The 2 anglers comply with this sample for many of the day, taking activates the ahead dealing with sonar as they work the massive lake from north to south. They give attention to the smallmouth spots they’d dialed in – the identical waypoints they’d analyzed, mentioned, and obsessed over the night time earlier than. After 4 years of fishing throughout the nation collectively, it’s a well-known sport.

“That’s the fantastic thing about being on a workforce,” says Fogarty, a local Pennsylvanian who got here to Bethel on scholarship after making a reputation for himself as a two-time Bassmaster Excessive College All American. “We’re all capable of put our heads collectively and determine a sport plan, so if one workforce is struggling, we’ll attempt to give them an thought of what’s working. And that undoubtedly helps, having a bunch of minds go at one thing.”

It’s additionally the assortment of minds (much more than the sheer variety of them) that helps these anglers develop so shortly. Some are used to flipping jigs in heavy cowl on murky Southern reservoirs, whereas others realized the finesse sport on clear Midwestern lakes. Put the 2 collectively and you’ve got one helluva bass fisherman. 

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Fogarty, who grew up fishing the salt together with his dad, says this would be the third yr that he and Fillmore have gotten a berth to the Bassmaster Faculty Nationwide Championships by ending within the prime 20 p.c at a qualifying match just like the one on Kentucky Lake. It’s some extent of satisfaction for each anglers, who’ve been following Bethel’s rise since they had been in center college.

“Bethel acquired its title fairly just a few years in the past due to all of the hammers that went there — guys like Cole Floyd, John Garrett, and KJ Queen,” says Fillmore, whose behavior of tacking “sir” onto most each “sure” offers away his rural Ohio roots. “I regarded into a pair different faculties, like Adrian and Campbellsville, however by the point I acquired a proposal to go to Bethel, I’d already made up my thoughts.”

Like so a lot of his friends on the school circuit, Fillmore appears and lives the a part of an outdoor jock, with a goatee and a crew reduce that stays hidden beneath a trucker’s cap. He hunts geese and deer when the bass aren’t biting, and he says essentially the most illuminating a part of the entire school expertise has been the chance to see and fish so many lakes.

“I don’t care when you grew up on Kentucky Lake or someplace prefer it. For those who haven’t grown up touring the nation, you bought rather a lot to study coming straight out of highschool.”

Research corridor can’t final ceaselessly, although. And are available match time, even the friendliest Minnesotans and essentially the most courteous Alabamians are out for blood. 

Which explains why the Montevallo workforce made up of Jackson Pontius (Alabama) and Blair Erickson (Minnesota) weren’t afraid to run up on Dumke and Fothergill once they discovered the 2 already fishing a spot they’d marked the day earlier than. As a substitute of transferring to a brand new location, they fished inside shouting distance of the reigning champs and caught three 4-pounders underneath their noses. 

“You hear a variety of the professionals say this, too, however I consider that school fishing might be one of many hardest circuits to fish,” Fogarty says. “You’ve acquired 250 groups made up of the most effective guys on the market and so they have the identical desires and aspirations. They simply need to make it.”

Hammers within the Tough

For those who ask Coach Mason what his main position is, he’ll let you know it has little to do with the nuts and bolts of bass fishing. He’s additionally not the one coach who admits that many of the incoming freshmen are higher anglers than they’re. 

Mason earned his repute over time as one of many prime crappie guides on Kentucky Lake. He’s shared his boat with loads of fishing celebrities and professional anglers, together with Nashville legends like Jerry Reed and Hank Williams Jr. However when he acquired the possibility to take Bethel’s dean of scholars crappie fishing a pair days after the Kentucky Lake match, he had one in all his pupil anglers give him a tutorial on FFS beforehand.

The largest half of a school fishing coach’s job is to set their college students up for achievement by giving enterprise recommendation, fostering connections with sponsors, organizing journeys, and infrequently staying up all night time to repair an outboard motor. However first, they’ve to hunt out these opponents and promote them on the school expertise, which is usually more durable than it sounds. Elite Sequence champ and Bethel alum John Garrett is a primary instance.

Not like Fogarty or Fillmore, or the umpteen different hopefuls who’ve despatched Mason their resume over time, Garrett says he had zero curiosity in going to varsity. He wasn’t even positive if he needed to fish professionally though he’d been fishing Kentucky Lake and competing in native tourneys since he was a child, all the time together with his granddad as his boat captain. And he did effectively sufficient within the BASS highschool circuit to catch Mason’s eye. He nonetheless remembers bumping into the top coach within the crowd at a Bassmaster Traditional years in the past, when Mason casually talked about that he’d like to have him on the workforce at Bethel.

“I simply had no thought what I used to be gonna do with myself, and two days after I graduated [high school], I went to work in my granddad’s marina,” Garrett says. “Someday, Garry Mason walked in, and he provided me a scholarship to go to Bethel. At first, I used to be like, Hmmm, I don’t know.”

However the elder Garrett noticed the chance for what it was and inspired his grandson to offer it an opportunity. After a sluggish begin his freshman yr (the West Tennessee native zeroed throughout his first match on Kentucky Lake) he discovered his stride.

“That subsequent yr, I began hitting on all cylinders, not simply doing higher at school however I used to be killing it on the water, and so had been my teammates. We had been crushing these tournaments, having time, and we had been studying an insane quantity,” Garrett says. “And as we headed into our junior yr, it simply continued. All of us had gained an enormous match sooner or later, and that’s sort of when me and my different mates realized that we might push this faculty fishing factor right into a profession.”

He’s not alone in chasing that dream. For those who have a look at the 130 anglers fishing the Elite Sequence right this moment, about two dozen of them are underneath the age of 30. Of these, 22 got here up by the school ranks. This new guard is extraordinarily well-versed in new expertise like FFS and GIS mapping, and since they grew up within the age of social media, a lot of them are pure self promoters.

“Once you’re at school, and particularly after I was at Bethel, there have been so many various anglers — guys from Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Pennsylvania — and all of us acquired put underneath the identical roof,” Garrett says. “And I’ve all the time heard this, nevertheless it couldn’t be more true: The extra you’re round higher competitors, the higher you get.”

Regardless that many anglers enter school with aspirations of profitable the Bassmaster Traditional, an excellent larger quantity will graduate with different profession alternatives due to the expertise they gained — and the connections they made — within the school circuits. (Some have taken jobs at BASS or repped main deal with manufacturers, and one is at present working as OL’s Engagement Editor.) In a worst-case state of affairs, they’ll depart college with a pile of fishing gear and a university diploma.

Till then, although, it’s first place or bust.

“Iron Sharpens Iron”  

By the point the ultimate morning of the match arrives, the rainstorms that pelted the lake all night time have eased. The still-crowded area, down just a few boats because of engine troubles and disqualifications, takes off at 6:30 a.m., giving opponents eight hours to make their 5 fish depend. And whereas Erickson and Pontius are sitting atop the leaderboard after catching 22-plus kilos on day one, Dumke and Fothergill are nonetheless the discuss of the dock.

“I heard they began culling fish by 10 a.m.,” says one older gentleman on the marina. One other mentions one thing in regards to the Bass Trakk numbers proven on the stay match feed, and the way you by no means can belief what the anglers are reporting. It’s too simple to sandbag or inflate the weights, he says.

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However the boys from Alabama weren’t mendacity, and halfway by the weigh-in, Dumke and Fothergill nonetheless lead the pack with 41 kilos 5 ounces of whole weight. They’re seated onstage as Cale brings up the opposite groups to weigh their luggage

“The way you boys feelin’?” the emcee asks. And as he appears out over the group sprawled out within the marina’s car parking zone, I’m reminded that that is all a part of the present — a made-for-TV second that mirrors what most of those youngsters grew up watching on Sunday afternoons. “These seats gettin’ sizzling but?”      

Ultimately, just a few groups are left standing within the weigh line because the reigning champs hold their seats. Bethel’s Fogarty and Fillmore come up, touchdown in second place with 40 kilos 4 ounces, and by the point they stroll off the stage, there’s just one workforce left to weigh in. It’s Erickson and Pontius, and many of the crowd already is aware of what’s coming as an emotional Erickson takes the microphone.

“Man, we’ve mentioned it time and time once more, however iron sharpens iron,” he says, channeling the professionals of tournaments previous and their previous chestnuts. “I wouldn’t be the angler I’m right this moment if it wasn’t for this workforce.”

After chatting up the 2 juniors, Cale shouts out their each day weight of 19 kilos 9 ounces, which provides them a profitable whole weight of 42 kilos 1 ounce. The 4 younger males from Montevallo shake palms, even earlier than the phrase “champion” is uttered, after which Dumke and Fothergill graciously exit stage left. They’ll let their friends soak all of it in. For now.