Logan-Rogersville, Mo., High School anglers Andrew Sell and Trevor Booth took advantage of the high water at Beaver Lake to win the National Youth Fishing Association Arkansas Division season finale held May 21.
Sell and Booth won the high school division of the tournament with a five-bass limit weighing 11.11 pounds and weighed in the big bass of the tournament with a 4.23-pound largemouth. The tournament drew 48 teams from Missouri and Arkansas high schools.
The winners flipped Texas- rigged Zoom Brush Hogs in green pumpkin and other colors to flooded brush along the bank. Booth said the fish were less than five feet deep in the backs of coves and pockets. They caught fish sporadically throughout the morning and had their limit by 11:30 a.m.
“We would catch three or four then we would go 35 to 40 minutes and come up on another stretch of bank and catch three or four more,” Booth said.
Dalton Johnson of Prairie Grove High School and Reese Jones of Rogers High School took second place with a 10.30-pound limit. They also received the Arkansas Division Team of the Year Award and qualified for the Midwest Shootout in October to compete for the overall National Youth Fishing Association Team of the Year award.
Johnson caught his fish on a chatterbait and Reaction Innovations Little Dipper while Jones tricked bass with a homemade rubber spider jig tipped with a Strike King Rage Tail Lobster.
Third place went to Kickapoo, Mo., High School’s Cole Henson and Kade Underwood with a limit weighing 9.29 pounds. They caught a couple of keepers in the morning flipping Texas-rigged watermelon or watermelon candy 3-inch Zoom Brush Hogs to bushes on secondary points.
Henson said their best action came later in the day when they ran Strike King 6XD crankbaits along main lake points.
Logan Young of Seymour won the middle school competition with 5.92 pounds.