Toombs Fishing 3rd In State

Courtesy of TCHS

The Toombs County High School fishing team of AJ Bagby and Tessa Jones placed 3rd at the GHSA State Championship at Lake Sinclair on Saturday May 9. AJ and Tessa had a 5-fish limit that weighed in at 19.00 pounds.

More than 400 high school fishing teams competed in the GHSA tournament series this spring. There were 113 teams that qualified to fish the GHSA State Championship through the three regional tournaments (West Point Lake, Clarks Hill Lake and Lake Hartwell). AJ and Tessa won the GHSA Clarks Hill Regional Tournament on March 7, to qualify for the State Championship.

“We caught several 5+ pound fish in practice. So had very high expectations for this tournament. But the conditions changed due to the storms and the lake levels were unstable due to the recent heavy rains. The fish were scattered and hard to find. So we targeted brush piles in the 10 to 20 foot range. We caught the 5.70 big fish after lunch and that turned our day around quickly,” said AJ Bagby.

“It was a really tough tournament. The fish were all spread out from the storms. We had to run-and-gun all day just to find active fish that would bite. We only had 2 fish at 11:00am. So we were super thankful to rally in the afternoon and bring 19 pounds to the scale,” said Tessa Jones.

With the 3rd place finish, AJ and Tessa have qualified for the World Finals at Cumberland Lake in Kentucky in June. The Lake Dawgs will be fishing against the 400 of the best high schools teams in the Country.

AJ and Lane Bagby, TCMS 8th grader, have also qualified for the Bassmaster National High School Championship at Kentucky Lake in July. AJ and Lane finished in 4th place for the Angler of the Year in the Georgia Bassmaster High School series competing against 200+ high school teams.