This past Saturday the fishing team competed and won their first tournament at Lake Ray Roberts. The junior team with Nick Rowe and Grady Boots won with 24.19 lb total and a 6.24 lb kicker big bass. The winning team received a monetary prize.

“We were expecting to do well,” Grady Boots said. “But we didn’t know that we were going to get first, catch that much, or get that big of a bag. “It felt really good to win the tournament, and I think this is going to be our best year, but we’ll see as the year goes on.”

Before the tournament, some teams went out the night before to plan their different strategies and others used the wind and rocks to their advantage. Each team had distinctive plans and tactics to help them have an edge on their competition.

“I felt prepared for the tournament,” senior 14th place finisher Grayson Cox said. “My partner went out the Friday before and found some patterns in the lake that we could use during the tournament.”

First place finishers, Nick Rowe and Grady Boots, fished frequently offshore and in deep waters as well as used drop shirts as their bait. The time of day also played a role for the fishers. The morning seemed to be the best time of day for these fishers to reel in a c

atch.

“[We caught our fish] earlier in the morning,” Rowe said. “And then for the last three hours of the tournament we didn’t really get many bites.” 

This tournament set the tone for the rest of their fishing season this year. Being the winning team of the tournament and having one of the junior teams place first puts Lovejoy at the top. The future looks bright as the team has the most amount of anglers they’ve had in a long time.  

“Winning with Grady was pretty big for the team,” Rowe said. “It really contributed to a team win, and it felt pretty awesome because it was a lot of scholarship money. I think as a team we’re going to do pretty well for the rest of the year and hopefully get the team title.”