HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — Talented young anglers from across the country will converge on Carroll County 1000 Acre Recreational Lake Oct. 8-9 for the 2021 Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Junior National Championship for second- through eighth-grade anglers. Competition kicks off each day at 7 a.m. CT at Carroll County Boat Launch with daily weigh-ins in downtown Huntingdon at 3:30 p.m.
This will mark the sixth year that Carroll County 1000 Acre Recreational Lake, the largest man-made lake in West Tennessee, has hosted the Bassmaster Junior National Championship.
Sixty-one teams from around the country will be competing in the championship, including Lainie Holbert and Sarah Swindle from the Riverside Junior Bass Team who hail from nearby Decaturville, Tenn. Holbert and Swindle qualified for the National Championship by winning a regular-season tournament on Michigan’s Saginaw Bay. The regular season included three additional tournaments on Harris Chain of Lakes in Leesburg, Fla., Lake Cumberland in Russell County, Ky., and Lay Lake in Shelby County, Ala.
Other Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Junior Series winners who will be battling for the championship later this week include the West Virginia duo of Luke Stewart and Austin Craze, Alabama’s Aiden King and Dillyn Dill and Florida’s Connor Kennedy and Hayden Johns.
In the Junior Series, each two-angler team is accompanied by a coach who runs the boat and can give advice on fishing techniques and patterns.
Rhea County (Tenn.) seventh graders Turner Tharpe and Blake James came back from fourth place to win the 2020 championship with a two-day total of 13 pounds, 15 ounces and earn a $2,500 scholarship. The pair finished in ninth-place this summer at the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster High School Series Classic presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors on Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth.
Tournament coverage will be available on Bassmaster.com.
The Bassmaster Junior Series National Championship is being hosted by the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce.
