For all the complaining that happened before, during and after practice, Cherokee Lake has proven to be an interesting playing field for the Strike King Bassmaster College National Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops given the conditions and regulations.
A total of 127 limits were weighed in the first two days of the tournament, many measuring between 10 and 14 pounds. The weights to make the Top 12 cut were extremely tight, so much so that Zach Wolfe and Brayden Ruckman needed to win a tiebreaker to advance to the final round.
The Team of the Year race has also taken quite the swing.
Here are a couple of quick observations from the first two days of competition.
Team of the Year has turned on its head
Entering this tournament, the Top 6 in the Team of the Year race looked like this:
- Grant Pursifull and Ben Burns, 731 points
- Anderson Jones, 723 points
- Zachary Helton and Blake Wheat, 714 points
- John Michael Ortman and Max Heaton, 707 points
- Elisha Colley and Storm Clark, 698 points
- Tripp Berlinsky and Bryce Dimauro, 693 points
Here is where these teams either finished or currently sit at Cherokee Lake:
- Grant Pursifull and Ben Burns, 153rd
- Anderson Jones, 106th
- Zachary Helton and Blake Wheat, 49th
- John Michael Ortman and Max Heaton, 41st
- Elisha Colley and Storm Clark, 24th
- Tripp Berlinsky and Bryce Dimauro, 1st
I won’t do the math and spoil the weigh-in festivities, but it is safe to say the standings will look a lot different come Saturday afternoon.
The search for green fish
With the Tennessee smallmouth regulations only allowing each angler to keep one 18-inch smallmouth per day, many teams have elected to run up the lake, some as far up as the Sevier Dam tailrace. Anglers who did that enjoyed a fresh inflow of water from overnight showers on Day 1, which helped the bite tremendously.
Plenty of teams have said they have been bouncing back and forth from shallow to deep water, including Andrew Blanton and Garrett Smith from Lander University, who have used a buzzbait around bank cover and a jig in all depths. Of course, forward-facing sonar has played a factor for both quality smallmouth and largemouth.
Home Cooking
Located in Jefferson City, Carson-Newman University had high expectations for this tournament and have definitely answered the call. Four Carson-Newman teams will be competing on Championship Sunday along with three teams from the University of Montevallo. University of North Alabama, Faulkner University, Lander University, Dallas Baptist University and Drury University each have one team represented in the Top 12.
The Day 2 fall off
Cherokee was definitely much tougher on the competitors on Friday. After 70 limits were caught on Day 1, only 57 were landed on the second day and 200 fewer total pounds were brought to the scales. Some might say it is a time of year thing, but a similar scenario played out in the March Bassmaster Open in 2022 where Day 1 was much better than the second full field day.
Cut Blues
Eleven teams were within a pound of the 25-9 12th place cut weight. Brayden Batchelor only landed four keeper bass on Day 2 and will likely be wondering about what could have been for the next several weeks.
Can the leaders be caught?
Dimauro and Berlinsky have over a 3-pound advantage over Smith and Blanton heading into the final day and just under a 5-pound advantage over third-place Phillip Herring and Parker O’Bryan. That is a pretty significant mark, but on a stingy fishery, Dimauro and Berlinsky are by no means safe.
