Pro angler Jacob Wheeler (left) with Jaxson Davis (center) and Noah Droke of Walker Valley Bass Fishing.
BY DAVE LINK
Noah Droke tried tournament bass fishing a year ago and didn’t really like it.
And not because he can’t catch fish.
“I’ve fished ever since I could get a rod in my hand,” said Droke, a sophomore at Walker Valley High School in Cleveland.
It was the nerves that got Droke, who lives in Benton.
“I’d get a little too nervous when I was out there and didn’t really know what I was doing,” he said.
Boy, has that changed.
Droke and co-angler Jaxson Davis of Walker Valley were big winners in the Jacob Wheeler High School Shootout, an annual event hosted by the Bassmaster and Major League Fishing star for which it is named.
The 2025 Shootout was held Nov. 22-23 on Chickamauga Lake — Wheeler’s home lake — and Droke and Davis strolled into the Day 1 weigh-ins with a five-bass bag weighing a whopping 26 pounds even.
One of the bass weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces, caught by Droke.
In fact, Droke caught the duo’s four biggest keepers on Day 1.
“It was awesome when our smallest fish was three and a half pounds,” Droke said.
Awesome would be one way Walker Valley Bass Fishing coach Jamie Tanksley describes Droke’s bass fishing.
Here’s another: “Noah is a hammer,” said Tanksley, who owns Fishtales Bait and Tackle in Cleveland.
And Droke was hammering the bass with Davis on Day 1 of the event benefitting the Wheeler Fishing Foundation, which promotes bass fishing and the industry through donorship and sponsorship.
Amazingly, Droke was new to Chickamauga Lake. “This was my first time ever fishing at Chickamauga,” he said.
Not so for Davis, a freshman at Walker Valley.
“That’s where I mostly fish, Chickamauga and Watts Bar,” Davis said.
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MONSTERS ON DAY 1
Davis and Droke were fishing just their third tournament together when they went to the Jacob Wheeler Shootout. They met at an angling event on Watts Bar earlier this fall, got to talking, and formed a partnership.
It was clicking on Day 1 at Chickamauga, which is known for big bass.
“That was a special day right there,” Davis said.
It was special from the get-go. Their boat captain was Kevin Drake, who works at Fishtales Bait and Tackle for Tanksley.
“That morning we had like 18 pounds within the first 45 minutes on the water,” Droke said, “and then we just went and fished for big fish after that (in the main channel).
“After we got our limit, all we had were maybe 10 (more) bites, but those handful of fish were the big ones, which helped a lot.”
One bass weighed about 6 pounds, another one about 5 pounds.
Droke caught the near 8-pounder during the last hour of the Shootout’s time limit. He caught it on a swim bait in a grassy area in the main channel.
And he knew it was big.
“When I first hooked into her, she just started peeling drag,” Droke said.
Davis could hear it.
“Right when he hooked it,” Davis said, “I looked over there and said, ‘It’s a big one,’ and it jumped up, away from the net. I saw it, and it was time to get the net.”
The largemouth wasn’t done when it got near the boat.
“Right when he was reeling it in,” Davis said, “he jumped up and tried spitting it out, but he reeled it in and I got it in the net.”
It wasn’t even a personal best for Droke, who caught a bass weighing 10 pounds, 5 ounces when he was 12 years old in Florida.
Droke and Davis’s winning bag on Day 1 weighed 7 pounds more than the second-place bag (see results).
Droke, however, was still nervous during weigh-ins. He estimates they caught about 60 bass during Day 1, mostly on swim baits.
“I’ve never caught a bag even close to that,” Droke said. “But I was still wondering, I was like, ‘Dang, someone could probably come in with like 30 pounds,’ and I really didn’t know what to expect when we first got there for weigh-ins. I kind of saw what everybody else had and I was like, ‘Yeah, I think we won this one.’”
Noah Droke, pro angler Jacob Wheeler (center), and Jaxson Davis
DAY 2 WITH WHEELER
By winning Day 1, Droke and Davis earned $1,500 each, plus the opportunity to fish the Day 2 Pro-Am with Wheeler, whose career earnings surpassed $3.6 million in 2024. Wheeler lives in Harrison, Tennessee.
Each of the top 10 co-angling teams from Day 1 fished with a pro angler on Day 2.
Wheeler brought in some heavy hitters from the pro tour for his event, including Banks Shaw, Robert Gee, Brandon Lester, Hunter Shyrock, Matt Becker, and Michael Neal.
Rules of the event allowed each pro angler to catch two of the boat’s five keeper bass. Droke wasn’t worried about that. He just wanted to fish with Wheeler.
“It was definitely exciting seeing him and stuff, and fishing with him,” Droke said. “I learned a lot and everything, from what to use, how to use it, and the time of day, where to go. It was exciting.”
Davis knew Wheeler from watching Wheeler’s YouTube Channel and the Major League Fishing YouTube channel.
“It was fun,” Davis said of Day 2 with Wheeler. “He was just a normal guy. He was really chill.”
The fishing for Davis and Droke had cooled off by Day 2, which was won by the Pro-Am team of Shaw with Camdyn Cranfill and Turner Tharpe. Their bag weighed 24 pounds, six ounces.
Davis, Droke, and Wheeler were third (15 pounds, 13 ounces). Their biggest bass was about 4 pounds.
“It was just different conditions,” Droke said of fishing on Day 2. “It was lot windier, which affected it. When you’re fishing different spots and you get at different angles, they’re not going to hit it the same as the next day, and it’s a totally different day.
“It kind of messed with us, but we caught the two bigger ones within the last 30 minutes of fishing, which helped us a lot.”
Droke and Davis have a little break from tournament fishing now. Their next event is in February.
And Droke has a different outlook than he had a year ago.
“I’m definitely going to take this a lot more serious now,” he said.