Colin Bourne (left) and Crews McFerrin of the Karns High School Fishing Team.
BY DAVE LINK
Crews McFerrin has been fishing for as long as he can remember.
“Ever since I was in diapers, I was fishing,” McFerrin said, “but I really got into tournament fishing about four years ago.”
Colin Bourne is more of a fishing newbie. He got hooked about three or four years ago when he went fishing with McFerrin.
“It started when Crews took me catfishing,” Bourne said, “and I fell in love with reeling in a fish, and then he got me into bass fishing.”
They’re freshmen now at Karns High School, and they’re neck-deep into bass fishing.
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McFerrin and Bourne went to the Bassmaster nationals in the summer, representing the Karns Middle School Fishing Team, and posted a 30th-place finish.
And last Saturday (Oct. 11), they posted their first high school tournament victory for Karns, winning the Tennessee Bass Nation’s B.A.I.T. stop on Watts Bar Lake.
“I love fishing,” McFerrin said. “We’re freshmen, and it’s an amazing feeling, really, being freshmen and winning, competing against seniors that are hammers at a sport.”
Bourne thinks he’s got a hammer for a co-angler in his buddy McFerrin. The two became friends a few years ago while playing youth football.
“He’s one of the best I’ve ever fished with,” Bourne said. “(McFerrin) really knows where to get the fish and where to go, and it’s crazy and mind blowing how much he knows at such a young age.”
McFerrin credits most of his early angling expertise to his father, Ty, who got all three of his sons into fishing. Crews has a younger brother, Jojo, and older brother, Tyson, a sophomore at Karns.
Tyson and Crews qualified for the Bassmaster nationals two years ago while in middle school, and when Tyson couldn’t go, Crews fished solo and posted a 12th-place finish.
McFerrin and Bourne are fishing for the third year as co-anglers.
“I love fishing with (Bourne),” McFerrin said. “He’s a really good partner. About three years ago, when I started tournament fishing, I fished with my brother, and the year after that, I started fishing with Colin. We’ve gotten really close together.”
Their win on Watts Bar came with some practice.
Bourne went on a trial run on the lake a couple of weeks prior to the event with his dad, Casey.
“We only stayed out till about 1, so we only had about 4 hours of fishing,” Colin said, “but I’d say we had close to nine pounds, a 10-pound bag.”
Bourne couldn’t practice Watts Bar the week before the tournament but McFerrin and his dad went at it hard.
“Practice was on and off, really,” McFerrin said. “We spent most of our time side-scanning for brush piles, rocks and any schools of fish offshore, close to the bank, on points, anywhere.
“We figured out what we were going to do. On the last day of practice, we went to docks up real shallow and we figured out it wasn’t the best way to go. We had a decent practice, but we knew what our plan was going into the tournament.”
Their plan could hardly have worked better.
McFerrin estimated they caught more than 20 keeper bass, finishing with the five-bass limit weighing 17.23 pounds, including a 4-pound mean-mouth caught by McFerrin. Their winning check was $500.
At times, the bite was almost unreal.
“The fishing caught me off guard,” Bourne said. “There was just so many fish, and the size of the fish. … It was so constant, and we culled out so many times, it was unbelievable. I’ve never been in a situation like that where we catch so many pretty nice ones, just like that.”
Their best bait that day was a Burtek Primus artificial minnow, which hit the big mean-mouth bass. Their final limit consisted of the mean-mouth and four largemouth.
“Most of our fish were just roaming, looking for bait,” McFerrin said. “There weren’t really schools of fish. The biggest school was about four (fish) that we found. We just cast at ’em and one of ’em ended up being a 4-pound mean-mouth.”
They won by more than a pound over Karns High teammates Hudson Mynatt and Wilson Shepherd (15.80 pounds, $400).
Third place was Mac Fritts and Cayden Wright of Campbell County High (13.09, $300), followed by Jackson Turpin and Alex Spakes of Kingston High (12.83 pounds, $200) and fifth-place Anthony Malone and Ayden Malone of Campell County High (12.17 pounds, $100).
Boat captain Austin Lytle (left) and his son, Keaton, of the Smoky Mountain Fishing Team.
Keaton Lytle and Cody Lytle of Smoky Mountain Fishing Team won the juniors division with 12.62 pounds for $200, ahead of teammates Bryce Farmer and Colt James (10.08 pounds, $150).
Once weigh-ins were finished, Bourne and McFerrin were surprised by the win.
“We didn’t really think we had a winning bag,” Bourne said, “because previous tournaments at Watts Bar, 17 (pounds) was really like top five, top three. I think we came in knowing we had top five, but I never would have said we had the winning bag.”
It was a pleasant surprise.
“I knew we were close to top five or top three, but I didn’t think we’d win,” McFerrin said. “I couldn’t believe it, really. It was an amazing feeling, winning it and catching over 20 keepers that day. We culled 10 to 12 times.”