DAYTON, Tenn. — It doesn’t get much better than fishing the Bassmaster Classic. But 2024 Classic competitor Aaron Yavorsky and his partner Trevor Allen find themselves on top of the biggest stage of youth bass fishing after Day 1 of the Strike King Bassmaster High School National Championship presented by Bill Dance Signature Lakes at Chickamauga Lake.
The Hendry County High School Bassmasters team landed a three-bass limit weighing 17 pounds, 8 ounces, anchoring their bag with a 7-15 largemouth. They hold a 13-ounce advantage over fellow Floridians Drew Fleener and Hunter Prough from the Chipley Bassmasters.
“We only got four or five bites all day, but they were the right ones,” said Yavorsky, who won the 2023 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Team Championshipat the Harris Chain. “After the Classic, I’ve felt like I wanted to do this for a living. So, I’ve been trying to get better and better. I’ve been to this tournament all four years of my high school career, and this is the tournament I really want to win. It is what we fish the high school program for. Coming here and doing well the first day is definitely something different.”
While fog delayed the start of the event, many teams enjoyed a productive day of fishing as 130 teams caught three-bass limits in the August heat and more than 1,470 pounds of bass hit the scales. The heat will stick around on Day 2 with an increased chance of showers and thunderstorms.
Last year at Lake Hartwell, Yavorsky missed the final-day cut by just a couple of ounces, but he finds himself in great position to make the cut this year. Not only is it Allen’s first time to fish Chickamauga, it is the first time he has qualified for the National Championship.
“It is a very good way to start,” he said.
The Hendry County duo focused their efforts on current-driven offshore areas. After practice, they didn’t know the exact potential of their areas, but knew the caliber of largemouth that inhabits Chickamauga Lake.
“I knew this type of bag was possible, but with how our practice went, it was kind of iffy. We thought we would have to luck into something. We did get a little lucky, I feel like, by just pulling into the right area at the right time.”
The morning started in frustrating fashion, as Yavorsky and Allen struggled to find an area without other competitors.
“It was pretty slow this morning,” Yavorsky said. “A storm came through, and it seemed like the fish started biting then.”
The duo proceeded to land the nearly 8-pounder, which Yavorsky thought was a drum by looking at it on his Lowrance ActiveTarget.
“I saw the fish down there and was a little unsure if it was a bass just based on how it looked on the screen,” he said. “I threw in there anyway because it was the only thing that was there. I saw more come up with it and knew it was a bass then. It took a minute or two to get that one in, and that was our first good fish. It really keyed us in, and it was haywire from there.
“I think we were doing a little something different.”
From there, the duo filled out their limit quickly. There were several keys to the spot, including the presence of baitfish and hard bottom. Some of what they are fishing reminds Yavorksy of the Harris Chain of Lakes, where he won the Team Championship last December.
“We probably finished out around 10:30,” Allen said. “All of our fish came from one spot. There was a lot of grass there, and cooler water temperatures. It was about 70 degrees. We were in around 12 to 15 feet.”
Yavorsky and Allen know there are more big bass in the area, but getting them to bite is a different story. Yavorsky said it’s just a matter of timing.
“Getting them to bite is the key thing,” he said. “We are just going to have to sit there until a bite window opens or run around and find something else.”
Hailing from the Lake Seminole region of Florida, Fleener and Prough knew they would be able to catch bass but weren’t sure how many big bass would show up on Day 1. Luckily, they caught three of the right size to land in second after one day of competition. Their Lake Seminole tactics have helped them narrow down a pattern.
“It is pretty similar; we like it,” Prough said. “It is definitely stuff we are used to.”
Fleener and Prough opened the morning with several smaller catches before landing a 4-pounder, bolstering their bag.
“That gave us a booster,” Prough said. “We caught some more small ones, and we were kind of on the nervous side.”
The duo then moved out to deeper water where Prough landed a 7-pounder. After another lull, they moved to another deep area and landed a 5-pounder at around 9 a.m. Prough added they lost several more bass that would have increased their daily total, so they will employ the same strategy on Day 2.
The Triangle Bass Club team of Colton Hackney and Levi Stanley caught 16-3 to finish the day in third place. The North Carolina anglers — Hackney from the Chowan River area and Stanley from the Raleigh area — also landed the Big Bass of the Day, an 8-11 lunker largemouth.
Three different areas produced fish for Stanley and Hackney. Stanley said they have been using forward-facing sonar to find areas that are holding bass. Once they find them, however, they don’t target individual bass.
“At one point we just turned our electronics completely off,” Stanley said. “We at least know the bass are there.”
The morning started relatively well, as Stanley landed a 5-pounder and a 2-pounder as well as some smaller bass that did not make the team. After the morning flurry, the bite slowed down tremendously until the afternoon when Hackney hooked into the nearly 9-pound largemouth, his new personal best, with 15 minutes to go before check-in time.
“I thought I was hung up, and then what I was hung up on started moving and shaking around,” Hackney said. “I just held on for dear life.”
The full field of 272 teams will launch from Lakeshore Drive Boat Launch beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET and will return for weigh-in starting at 2:30 p.m. The field will be cut to the Top 12 teams following the Day 2 weigh-in.
The City of Dayton is hosting the event.
