The Best Bass Fishing in America Is Happening on the College 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 event 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 greater fish north of Paris, which lies simply down the highway 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 a whole bunch 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 staff 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 Series win. After main all three days on the Harris Chain of Lakes, Garrett turned the second rookie this season to carry up the blue trophy.

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

It’s this optimistic and aggressive spirit that’s fueled the regular development of school bass fishing in recent times. There are actually hundreds of pupil anglers competing within the sport. Dynasties are being constructed, scholarships are on the desk, and every event brings each the promise of a payday and the prospect 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 College National Championships on Lake Hartwell. The profitable staff there’ll mechanically 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 turn out to be the last word proving grounds for skilled bass fishing. After all, getting a school 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 children? They’re right here to win.

Blast Off

It’s barely gentle out, and the marina at Paris Touchdown is lit up purple and inexperienced by the a whole bunch of navigation lights reflecting off the water. Even standing on dry land close to the docks, I can really feel the massive 250s rumbling underfoot. I acknowledge a number of 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 edges. Most of those sparkly water rockets price greater than I’ll make in a yr, and every child behind the wheel is not less than 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. A couple of 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 principle lake.

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

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

Placing alongside a number of 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 fellows could 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 event on Kentucky Lake marked the second cease on the Legends Path of the 2024 Bassmaster College Series. Over the course of two days in mid-April, 216 two-man groups (a number of fished solo) competed for the heaviest mixed baggage of 5 bass. And people baggage weren’t gentle.

“While you speak about school fishing, you’re speaking about the very best younger fishermen within the nation. These younger women and men are the longer term execs that we’ll be watching on TV,” BASS event supervisor Glenn Cale tells Outside Life. “You’ll be able to 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 now’s up-and-coming school anglers and the AA minor league ball gamers who’re on their method to the massive leagues.

“While you’re watching AA ball anyplace on this nation, you’re watching the longer term big-league gamers,” he says. “That’s the place the very best 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 wish to compete. There’s additionally been a rise within the variety of feminine rivals. This led the group to increase its event sequence 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 event trails.  

And the BASS circuit, which fashioned in 2006, is only one of some school fishing leagues in America right now. After merging with Fishing League Worldwide in 2019, Major League Fishing has constructed up its personal school league. This helped increase 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 now’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 search out sponsors, and so they can win cash, gear, and different prizes within the tournaments. The primary-place examine for the Kentucky Lake event 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 vital 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 vital than catching fish in our trade is the enterprise aspect 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 easy methods to promote your self could appear tremendous apparent, however you truly put them into play whenever you’re in school and fishing for a membership.”

The cash flows each methods, too. Extra viewers and followers imply extra {dollars} for event organizers and the manufacturers that sponsor them. In the meantime, a handful of universities have capitalized on the game’s development 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 out of doors character, 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 a number of years later, when BASS launched the High School Series and created a recruiting pipeline for future school anglers.  

“Originally I simply needed to recruit children from across the space whose fathers or grandfathers I knew, however I suppose it labored out fairly effectively,” Mason tells Outside Life. “So 2011 and 2012 had been actually huge years for us, and by the point we received to 2018, we type of had the dream staff of school 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 turn out to be a rip-lipping powerhouse. Mason says six Bethel alumni are actually fishing professionally, with much more graduates holding jobs within the bigger out of doors trade.

Different faculties — largely smaller, non-public universities with cash to burn — have adopted swimsuit, bringing on their very own head coaches and devoting college funding to fishing packages. At the moment, not less than 20 universities supply some type of educational 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 year.)

These school-funded packages supply a serious benefit in tournaments over conventional membership groups, that are run and funded completely by college students. Universities like Bethel assist pupil anglers financially by protecting event prices and journey bills, and so they assist join these college students with potential sponsors. Some colleges even have wrapped vans and staff 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 convey 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 received an inquiry final yr from an adolescent in South Africa. Everybody is keen to get on the staff.

Getting Schooled

Stopping at one in all their recognized spots on day two of the event, 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 a giant swimbait. “Forty ft down and arising.”

A couple of 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 not less than 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 college. 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 a lot of the day, taking activates the ahead going through sonar as they work the large lake from north to south. They deal with 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-recognized sport.

“That’s the great thing about being on a staff,” says Fogarty, a local Pennsylvanian who got here to Bethel on scholarship after making a reputation for himself as a two-time Bassmaster Excessive Faculty All American. “We’re all capable of put our heads collectively and work out a sport plan, so if one staff is struggling, we’ll attempt to give them an thought of what’s working. And that positively 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 discovered 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 along 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 event just like the one on Kentucky Lake. It’s a degree of pleasure for each anglers, who’ve been following Bethel’s rise since they had been in center college.

“Bethel received its title fairly a number of 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” provides away his rural Ohio roots. “I appeared into a pair different colleges, like Adrian and Campbellsville, however by the point I received 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 seems to be and lives the a part of an open air jock, with a goatee and a crew lower 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 should you grew up on Kentucky Lake or someplace prefer it. Should you haven’t grown up touring the nation, you bought so much to be taught coming straight out of highschool.”

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

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

“You hear numerous the professionals say this, too, however I imagine that school fishing might be one of many hardest circuits to fish,” Fogarty says. “You’ve received 250 groups made up of the very best guys on the market and so they have the identical desires and aspirations. They only wish to make it.”

Hammers within the Tough

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

Mason earned his fame through the years 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 received the prospect to take Bethel’s dean of scholars crappie fishing a pair days after the Kentucky Lake event, he had one in all his pupil anglers give him a tutorial on FFS beforehand.

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

In contrast to Fogarty or Fillmore, or the umpteen different hopefuls who’ve despatched Mason their resume through the years, Garrett says he had zero curiosity in going to varsity. He wasn’t even positive if he wished to fish professionally despite the fact that he’d been fishing Kentucky Lake and competing in native tourneys since he was a child, all the time along 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 staff 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. “Sooner or later, Garry Mason walked in, and he supplied 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 provide it an opportunity. After a sluggish begin his freshman yr (the West Tennessee native zeroed throughout his first event 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 a great 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 a giant event sooner or later, and that’s type of when me and my different associates realized that we may push this faculty fishing factor right into a profession.”

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

“While you’re in school, and particularly once I was at Bethel, there have been so many numerous anglers — guys from Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Pennsylvania — and all of us received put below 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.”

Despite the fact that many anglers enter school with aspirations of profitable the Bassmaster Traditional, a fair higher 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 sort out manufacturers, and one is at the moment working as OL’s Engagement Editor.) In a worst-case situation, they’ll go away college with a pile of fishing gear and a school diploma.

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

“Iron Sharpens Iron”  

By the point the ultimate morning of the event arrives, the rainstorms that pelted the lake all night time have eased. The still-crowded discipline, down only some boats attributable to engine troubles and disqualifications, takes off at 6:30 a.m., giving rivals 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 concerning the Bass Trakk numbers proven on the dwell event 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 complete weight. They’re seated onstage as Cale brings up the opposite groups to weigh their baggage

“The way you boys feelin’?” the emcee asks. And as he seems to be out over the gang sprawled out within the marina’s 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 children grew up watching on Sunday afternoons. “These seats gettin’ scorching but?”      

Finally, only some 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 staff left to weigh in. It’s Erickson and Pontius, and a lot of the crowd already is aware of what’s coming as an emotional Erickson takes the microphone.

“Man, we’ve stated 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 now if it wasn’t for this staff.”

After chatting up the 2 juniors, Cale shouts out their each day weight of 19 kilos 9 ounces, which provides them a profitable complete weight of 42 kilos 1 ounce. The 4 younger males from Montevallo shake fingers, 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.