JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. — Rex Reagan of Livingston, Tenn., weighed in 16 pounds, 15 ounces of smallmouth to take the top slot after Day 1 at the Mercury B.A.S.S. Nation Qualifier at Cherokee Lake presented by Lowrance. He leads local Hunter Price by 7 ounces, with the top ten all bringing at least 14 pounds to the scales.
Reagan won’t turn 18 until this August, but he’s no stranger to top-level competition, having won back-to-back Strike King Bassmaster High School National Championships, first at Chickamauga Lake in 2024 and then at Clarks Hill Reservoir in 2025. Subsequently he watched B.A.S.S. Nation qualifier Dylan Nutt, also from Tennessee, win last month’s Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour in Knoxville, which only added fuel to Reagan’s desire to make it to the 2027 Bassmaster Classic on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell – and to possibly become the youngest Classic winner in the event’s history.
“I’m 100 percent looking that far ahead,” he said. “I want to make it there, and when I heard about this I had to enter, even if it meant missing a week of school to be here. I’ve treated this tournament just like every other big event I’ve fished. It feels the same and I want to win it just as bad.”
He used his electronics expertise and a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader to get off to a fast start this morning, landing four of his five smallmouth in his starting area, but after that, things got a little slow.
“I really only caught five good ones today and I only culled two or three times” he explained. “I tried to lay off of them as much as I could but I knew I had to have 16 pounds. I’ve been averaging 14 pounds a day in practice all week, but 90 percent of them have been smallmouth. That’s not a good thing because they tend to move in and out a lot quicker. I finally caught another 3 1/2 pounder about 2:30 that got me to my final weight.”
Tomorrow he will return to that same starting spot and hope that there are still enough fish left to maintain his lead. He’ll have to be consistent, because Price is an old hand on the lakes of East Tennessee. He likewise got off to a strong start today, with a limit of smallmouth in the livewell by 9:30 a.m., but after that “it got real slow.” He culled up by ounces over the course of the day and eventually backed off of his bronzeback bite to look for a kicker largemouth.
He found the one that he needed at the end of the day, a largemouth that allowed him to cull by over a pound, yet despite the plan coming to fruition he doesn’t necessarily plan to follow it on Saturday.
“I intend to spend more time smallmouth fishing tomorrow,” he explained. “At the end of the day I still had two small ones that I could have culled, but I was trying to save them for later in the week. My weight was a little higher than I expected, but I expected them to bite pretty steady all day and they didn’t do that.”
He typically fishes the local lakes including Cherokee, Douglas and Norris an average of four to five days a week and expects that personal history to provide him with an edge if things get tough. He’ll still chase largemouth tomorrow but for a shorter overall window.
Kentucky boater Kevin True landed the Big Bass of the Day, a 5 pound 6 ounce largemouth.
Kevin Seymour of New York holds the nonboater lead, with a three-bass limit weighing 8-13. That puts him nearly a pound over fellow New York Clifford Chilson in second with 7-15. Five other co-anglers also weighed in limits of 7 pounds or more.
Julie Price of West Virginia landed the biggest bass of the day on the co-angler side. It weighed 3-11 and she currently sits in 16th place.
The full field of anglers will take off from TVA Cherokee Dam Launch tomorrow beginning at 7:10 a.m. ET and return for weigh-in at 3:10 p.m. The Top 20 boaters and nonboaters after Day 2 will advance to Sunday’s final round.
The Top 10% of boaters and nonboaters after the final-day weigh-in will advance to the 2026 Mercury B.A.S.S. Nation Championship presented by Lowrance, where boaters will compete for a spot on the 2027 Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series as well as one of three spots in the 2027 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour.
The tournament is being hosted by Visit Jefferson County, TN.
