FLORIDA’S HARMONY HIGH SCHOOL WINS TBF/FLW HIGH SCHOOL FISHING SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP ON LAKE CUMBERLAND
SOMERSET, Ky. (Sept. 20, 2016) – The Harmony High School duo of Cole Thompson and Nick Cora from Harmony, Florida, brought a five-bass limit to the scale Saturday weighing 14 pounds, 6 ounces, to win the 2016 TBF/FLW High School Fishing Southeastern Conference Championship tournament on Lake Cumberland in Somerset, Kentucky. The win earned the team the title of Southeastern Conference champions and advanced the team to the 2017 High School Fishing National championship, held next spring at a location yet to be announced in conjunction with the TBF National Championship and a Walmart FLW Tour event.
A field of 57 teams from eight states qualified to compete in this conference championship.
“We came up here on Tuesday to pre-fish and Friday we finally put together a pattern we thought was our best bet to catch some decent fish,” said Thompson, a junior this year at Harmony High School. “After making some long runs in practice to the other end of the lake we decided to go up the South Fork River on Friday and thankfully we found these fish.”
“We used a green-pumpkin-colored jig with a Zoom Chunk trailer to catch almost all of our fish,” said Cora, also a junior. “On Friday we found that some of these bluff walls would have a shelf of riprap about 15 to 20 feet down that formed a bit of a reef. That is where our fish seemed to be holding.
“This lake is so much deeper and very different than anything that we have in Florida,” Cora continued. “Add that to the fact that we don’t have many smallmouths in our state and that makes this a pretty special win.”
The top five teams on Lake Cumberland that advanced to the 2017 High School Fishing National Championship were:
1st: Harmony High School, Harmony, Fla. – Cole Thompson and Nick Cora, (five bass, 14-6)
2nd: South Florence High School, Florence, S.C. – Cole Drummond and Piercen Lynch, (five bass, 11-14)
3rd: Creek Wood High School, Charlotte, Tenn. – Daniel Chesire and Steven Mills, (four bass, 10-2)
4th: Corbin High School, Corbin, Ky. – Noah Metzger and Marcus Davis, (five bass, 9-6)
5th: Mortimer Jordan High School, Kimberley, Ala. – Parker Davis and Aaron Stephens, (three bass, 7-15)
Rounding out the top 10 teams were:
6th: Irwin County High School, Ocilla, Ga. – Parker Guy and Ellis Douglas, (three bass, 7-8)
7th: East Jessamine High School, Nicholasville, Ky. – Nathan Marshall and Braxton Lamb, (four bass, 7-5)
8th: Bunker Hill High School, Claremont, N.C. – Dylan Lamm and Austin Blair, (three bass, 6-0)
9th: Rockcastle County High School, Mount Vernon, Ky. – Dakota Bishop and Trevor Sweet, (three bass, 5-14)
9th: Clinton High School, Clinton, Tenn. – Ryan Winchester and Jake Lee, (three bass, 5-14)
Complete results and photos from the event can be found at HighSchoolFishing.org.
The 2016 TBF/FLW High School Fishing Southeastern Conference Championship was a two-person (team) event for students in grades 7-12. The top 10 percent of each conference championship field will advance to the High School Fishing National Championship, coinciding with the TBF National Championship and an FLW Tour stop in the spring of 2017. The High School Fishing national champions will each receive a $5,000 college scholarship to the school of their choice.
In addition to the High School Fishing National Championship, all High School Fishing anglers nationwide automatically qualify for the world’s largest high school bass tournament, the 2017 High School Fishing World Finals. At the 2016 World Finals more than $60,000 in scholarships and prizes were awarded. Visit HighSchoolFishing.org for details.
