BUCHANAN, Tenn. — By midday today, either Bethel University’s John Garrett or Texas State University’s Evan Coleman will have had a lifelong dream fulfilled.
One of them will have secured a spot in the 2017 GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by GoPro when it is held on Lake Conroe near Houston, Tex. next March. The other will have to wait at least another year to match wits against the world’s best bass anglers.
Either way, the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Classic Bracket presented by Bass Pro Shops has been an excellent proving ground for both young men. After their teams finished in the top four at the college national championship last week in Kentucky, they moved south a state to Tennessee where they have fought their way through an eight-man field to today’s final round of the head-to-head competition.
If this bracket event was decided by cumulative weight, Garrett already would be booking hotel rooms in Houston. He secured limits on the first two days of fishing, and is the only one of the starting eight to have caught a limit at all on Kentucky Lake this week. His ten bass have totaled 31 pounds, 12 ounces, which is nearly double what Coleman has caught over the same two days (seven fish for 16-5.)
But both anglers started with a clean slate Saturday, meaning that Coleman doesn’t have to make up 15-plus pounds of weight, and Garrett must once again prove he can find the biggest bag of the day.
Neither said they were overly nervous, and their Friday evening bedtimes prove it. Coleman, who has been covering miles and miles of Kentucky Lake shorelines burning spinner baits, was asleep by 8 p.m. Garrett, who has been fishing an underwater hump close to the Paris Landing State Park Marina and also a point about 30 minutes south, was in bed by 9 p.m.
Well-rested, they’ll leave nothing on the water today — not with a spot in the world’s biggest bass tournament up for grabs.
“It would mean everything to me to win here,” said Garrett, who hails from Union City, Tenn. about an hour from Kentucky Lake and who grew up fishing on this body of water with his grandfather. “All my family and friends, especially those in Union City where I live, they’re all coming to watch the weigh-in today. It would feel good for myself just to win this thing, but it would real good to make everybody standing behind me proud. I’ve got a lot of people rooting for me.”
Coleman, who is the tournament’s No. 6 seed, is hours from home and hasn’t enjoyed the amount of local support that No. 4 seed Garrett has had the past few days. Not distracted, though, the Austin, Tex. native has quietly gone about his business on a lake he had never fished before practice for the College Classic Bracket began. He is used to fishing the Choke Canyon Reservoir south of San Antonio, an area known for its flooded timber, which is nothing like Kentucky Lake and its famous fishing ledges.
The unfamiliarity has forced Coleman to be creative, and it’s worked.
“I have to get the right bites today, plain and simple,” he said. “The weather is supposed to be (overcast) and excellent for what I’m doing…If I don’t have what I need by 10:30 or 11 (a.m.), I’ll probably have to go try something different.”
And just how much weight does Coleman think it will take to knock off Garrett on his home turf?
“If I can catch 18 pounds today, I think I have a legit shot,” Coleman said, who caught bags of 8-3 and 8-2 on the first two days of the tournament.. “In practice I caught a weight pretty close to (18 pounds) and it was in weather similar to (what I expect today.) If there’s cloud cover and rain, my bites turn on.”
Garrett had a limit of 12-5 on Thursday, before hooking a 19-7 limit on Friday. He said he’d be happy with another 12 pounds or so today, and hopes that’s enough to close out the bracket and punch his ticket to Houston.
Still, he’d like to go as high as he can. He’s also hoping that normal weekend pressure doesn’t deplete either of his areas before he has a chance to reach them today.
“I’ve been wanting to win in college pretty bad,” Garrett said. “Me and my partner, we came close, and in the last three or four tournaments, we’ve been in the top 10 in all of them — a third place at Pickwick (Lake in Alabama,) a ninth at Oklahoma, and second at Green River (Kentucky) by ounces (for the college national championship.) I’m ready to win one of these things. I’m tired of being first loser.”
Garrett and Coleman are due back at Paris Landing State Park Marina by 1:30 p.m. They will trailer their boats to downtown Paris, Tenn. for the final weigh-in, which is scheduled to begin about 2:30 p.m.