Bassmaster.com has asked our team of writers and staff to reflect on their favorite moment of 2016. Andrew Canulette is a freelance writer and photographer.
One of my favorite memories of the entire 2016 B.A.S.S. season came at the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Classic Bracket Challenge in August on Kentucky Lake.
Weigh-in on the final day of that tournament was held on the central town square in Paris, Tenn, and that area has a small-town, Americana feel to it – Mom and Pop businesses bustling behind tidy sidewalks, bright red welcome banners hanging from lampposts, flower beds popping forth color around the Henry County Courthouse.
The downtown Paris area has undergone significant restorations and renovations in previous years, but you don’t feel too far removed from 1955. It’s almost like Marty McFly could zoom by in his DeLorean any moment now.
On championship day, though, it was Bethel University’s John Garrett who took the starring role in this script, which really could have been yanked right out of a movie script.
Though he was seeded fourth in the 8-man tournament, Garrett won three consecutive head-to-head battles against other college anglers and won his spot in the Classic — on his home water, no doubt.
Garrett’s dad was one of the first people to greet the winning angler shortly after he pulled his rig up on a side street behind the weigh-in stage. Van and John Garrett embraced and fought back tears, realizing that the 20-year old angler was about to win a spot in the “Super Bowl of Bass Fishing.”
Garrett talked often that week about childhood fishing trips on Kentucky Lake with his grandpa, and how when he was growing up only an hour away from Paris, Tenn., he dreamed of one day making it to the Classic.
And now he had done just that.
A sense of awe comes over almost every angler when they talk about the Classic. It’s that way even for the most experienced and successful Elite Series pros. But to watch a collegiate amateur win a spot in the Bassmaster Classic in front of a hometown crowd dotted with teammates, family, and friends, was a really special opportunity for me.