Well we headed out about 1:30 A.M. yesterday morning and headed on our way to Gallatin, Tennessee and Old Hickory Lake for the State tournament yesterday. Got to the ramp about 4:15 A.M. Sat around for a little while in the truck. My uncle was gonna help another kid from our club prefish so he had his truck and boat too. Well me and my dad started to idle up the lake because it was some of the thickest fog I had ever seen. We eventually got up to some islands on the main rive a buddy of my uncle told us to check out. And from the time we started fishing for about 2-3 hours we slayed em. We probably caught 45 in that time. No real big ones but lots of 13-15in fish. The fish were coming up in the jumps eating minnows. I caught all mine on an XCalibur Zell Pop and my dad caught his on smoke and chartreuse/white 4in senkos. I was starting to get excited because I thought I had my winning spot.

Well that night at the pre tournament meeting There was 1 less angler in thee 15-18 age bracket than the 11-14. And I ended up the lucky one who gets the boat to himself all 5 hours. I also got paired with the same boat captain as last year at Chickamauga Lake.

We started at 6:00 A.M and my boat captain and I head up to the spot where they were schoolin for me and my dad. Well to make a long story short. I fished that huge flat for about 2 and a half hours didnt get a bite. I tried the Zell Pop, a Pointer 78, and Senko. And nothin I caught 1 bream on the Pop-R. Well this was the only spot we fished all day on friday so I had no other spots. So I thought for a minute and remembered that there were some flats up around the ramp. We stop on one at about 8:45 A.M. and the fish were bustin the top all over the minnows I had broken off my senko so I pick up a fluke. A bait I've never caught a fish on and start tearin em up at that spot with it I caught like 6 keepers in about 20 minutes. Then they kinda turned off on that spot so we run over to an island about 300yds in front of the ramp on the edge of the river channel and I caught another 4 or 5 keepers of the ledge into the main river channel in about a hour. Then we just fished  different odd spots for the the last bout hour and a half and I caught 3 or 4 more.

Well we get back to the ramp. This was a paper tournament so we had to wait a little while to tally up the weights and then they announce that with 5 fish for 7lbs 14oz I was the winner for the 11-14 age bracket. I also had the largest overall weight for either age bracket. I won a nice plaque and a Falcon Original 6'6 MH X-Fast Spinning rod with a Lew's spinning reel. I'll be heading to North Carolina in April for the Southern Regional tournament. I dont know what lake we'll be fishing yet but I should be able to find out soon. The winner in the older age bracket was Tanner Hunt. So 2 Tanners will be going to North Carolina.

This tournament was just a lesson to me that when things get down In the words of Ike NEVER GIVE UP! lol

Congratulations young man. We are proud of you.

Congrats young man on winning the tournament and good luck at the regional tournament.

Congrats and good luck on the next tournament!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATS You done good and a great way to look at the situation...

                               As Ever,

                                skillet

Way to go man, that's awesome.  Let us know when you find out what lake you'll be coming to in NC.  If it's close I'd like to come to the weigh-in.

Great job!! Keep up the good work.

Way to go champ!!!

CJ

CONGRATULATIONS!