BY DAVE LINK
Will and Alex Douglas of the Cumberland Gap High School Fishing Club reached a milestone in their careers March 19 on Fort Loudon Lake.
The brothers won the third event of the Tennessee BASS Nation’s Bass Pro Shops series, placing them second in the series standings going into the fourth and final event.
Alex Douglas (left) and Will Douglas after a March 19 tournament at Fort Loudon/Tellico lakes.
It’s no surprise they make a good fishing duo. They’ve fished together all their lives.
“We always bluegill fished together and everything,” Alex said.
Alex and Will are two of three triplets. Their older brother is Ryan. The triplets are juniors in high school.
“Ryan doesn’t fish a whole lot, but me and Alex are pretty big into fishing,” Will said.
Ryan and Alex attend Cumberland Gap High School, and Will is home-schooled due to a long rehab from hip surgery.
Alex is the starting catcher for Cumberland Gap’s baseball team, and he was a backup point guard for the basketball team. Ryan runs track.
“I stay pretty busy,” Alex said.
He and Will are coming off their second big finish on the Bass Pro Shops series.
In the previous stop, Nov. 6 at South Holston Lake in Upper East Tennessee, the Douglas brothers finished second by about a pound.
Their five-bass limit weighed 12.45 pounds, behind only Owen Stamm of the Hamblen County Anglers with a 13.77-pound bag.
“I had never fished that lake my entire life,” Will said. “It was heartbreaking we didn’t win it, but we did super good.”
Their uncle, Matt Echols, serves as boat captain.
“Man, we went up there to South Holston and we’d never fished it before,” Alex said. “It was new to us. We went up Friday and practiced and we figured out a game plan. We came so close. It wasn’t meant to be.”
WINNING ON LOUDON
Although their home lake is Norris, the Douglas brothers are more than familiar with Fort Loudon Lake.
Echols used to live in Loudon and fished Fort Loudon, Watts Bar, and Tellico for years. He and the Douglas brothers fish Fort Loudon often during the summer months.
“We’ve always fished Loudon and it’s always been one of our favorite places to go,” Alex said. “Watts Bar and Loudon are the two lakes we usually have a pretty good plan for.”
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They had a good plan March 19 after practicing on Fort Loudon the week before.
Taking off from the Tellico Dam/Loudon Canal ramp, Echols and the Douglas brothers ran more than hour up Loudon toward Knoxville.
“We decided to stay off Tellico and go up Loudon,” Alex said.
Fishing was tough.
“We probably got 10 bites the whole day,” Will said. “Out of those, we didn’t miss a single fish. We caught them on a bunch of moving baits.”
Will caught the two biggest fish, both 5-pound largemouth. They caught most of their fish on chatter baits and crankbaits.
“I did catch one of the better fish on a spinner bait on a log sticking up,” Alex said.
They won with a five-bass limit weighing 17.28 pounds.
“We had all largemouth, which was our plan, to go up the river and catch five big largemouth,” Alex said. “We were skipping docks with an Evergreen Jack Hammer (a chatter bait), and a lot of places in between docks. It was real flat and the current was coming up the river really well.”
Bryson Dotson and Holden Pistello of Campbell County Fishing were second (five bass, 10.18 pounds), while Mason Stalans and Brody Baker of Grainger High Fishing were third (five bass, 9.94 pounds) and Blake Wheat and Matthew Rothwell of the Rhea County Anglers were fourth (four bass, 9.88 pounds).
Will Douglas said the water was cloudy and dirty, and they caught the bass in 5 or 6 feet of water.
“You had to put the bait in front of their face,” Will said.
Their five bass averaged 3.46 pounds.
“Seventeen-and-change (pounds), that’ll win about any tournament around here,” Will said.
IN THE STANDINGS
The Douglas brothers are only about 3 pounds out of first place in the Bass Pro series standings after three events.
They got blanked in the Oct. 9 event at Cherokee Lake – landing no fish — but their 29.73 combined pounds for the next two events is behind only Riley Faulkner and Blake Roberts of Campbell County Fishing at 32.77 pounds.
Faulkner and Roberts won at Cherokee with a 16.27-pound bag.
Doston and Pistello of Campbell County, who are sixth in the Bass Pro standings, were the only other anglers beside the Douglas brothers with a double-digit bag at Fort Loudon.
“It’s tough to win,” Will said. “There’s so many good anglers, it’s a big milestone to win a tournament like that.”
Stamm is third in the Bass Pro standings (20.64 pounds), while Walker LaRue and Joe Vaulton of the Alcoa Fishing Team are fourth (16.65 pounds) and Hayden Barnett and Will Bacon of Roane County Fishing are fifth (15.56 pounds).
The Bass Pro Shops’ fourth and final event is April 16 at Watts Bar, and the Douglas brothers take some momentum into it.
“Coming off that second on South Holston,” Alex said, “that was just a blessing because we struggled on Cherokee and zeroed. It was bad, and then we went up there to South Holston and did really well, then did really well on Loudon. Watts Bar is actually where our uncle grew up fishing, so it should be a good one too.”