Eli O’Hara (left) and Sawyer O’Hara.
Sawyer and Eli O’Hara don’t fish year-around, but when they do fish, watch out.
The cousins for the Alcoa Fishing Team’s juniors primarily fish in the spring, and in four tournaments this season, have two victories.
Sawyer is in the seventh grade and Eli in the fifth grade at Coulter Middle School in Maryville.
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“We fish in the spring and hunt in the fall,” said Seth O’Hara, Sawyer’s father and the duo’s boat captain. “They’re pretty good at it.”
They were more than pretty good in the Chickamauga Lake MEGA tournament March 27, winning with a five-bass limit weighing 13.52 pounds. They also won the Tennessee Bass Nation Bass Pro Shops event March 19 on Fort Loudon/Tellico, giving them back-to-back wins on the circuit.
Sawyer felt good heading into the MEGA tournament in Dayton, despite the cold and windy conditions.
“I felt pretty confident going into it,” he said. “We’d fished Chickamauga a few times before. Anytime we go in, we’re pretty confident.”
Sawyer caught their big bass in the MEGA tournament, a 3.79-pound largemouth.
The O’Hara duo used big jigs to catch the bass.
“We were dragging it along the bottom in a row of stump beds,” Sawyer said.
Owen Ray and Camdyn Cranfill of Rhea County were second with a five-bass limit (12.05 pounds), including a 3.39-pounder. Carter Elliott and Christian Cagle of Meigs County were third (four bass, 11.4 pounds) with a 3.45-pounder.
Seth O’Hara isn’t surprised by the cousins’ success.
“They’ve been fishing since they could walk,” Seth said. “They’ve been around a lot of good fishermen and fished with a lot of good fishermen.”
Seth and Sawyer live in Greenback, while Eli and Seth’s brother, Justin, live in Friendsville.
Sawyer and Eli will attend Maryville High School after they finish at Coulter Grove Middle. They will continue fishing for the Alcoa Fishing Team because Maryville doesn’t have a team.
And they plan on continuing to compete together.
“I like it pretty good (fishing with Eli),” Sawyer said. “He’s left-handed and I’m right-handed, so it works pretty good going down the bank. God has just blessed us with the ability to fish.”
COLLINS TRAVELS, WINS WITH SHAW
B.J. Collins (left) and Banks Shaw.
B.J. Collins must travel a couple of hours from his Robbinsville, N.C., home to compete for the Sale Creek Fishing Team.
It sure beats the alternative.
Collins, a home-schooled junior, said he’d have to travel twice as far to compete in the nearest North Carolina series to Robbinsville, a small town located in western North Carolina.
“We have plenty of lakes and stuff to fish,” he said, “but the actual closest North Carolina Trail is almost 4 and a half to 5 hours away from where I live, and it’s only 2 hours to places like Chickamauga and Watts Barr from my house. It’s just easier to fish lakes like that. Plus, I like to fish the way the Tennessee River chain fishes more than the North Carolina places.”
Collins teamed up for the 2021-22 season with one of the state’s top anglers, Banks Shaw, a senior at Sale Creek and a University of North Alabama signee.
They won the Chickamauga MEGA event’s high school division and lead the 2022 Tennessee Bass Nation’s State Open points race after four of the five events.
“We both fish hard and we fish good together,” Collins said of teaming with Shaw. “Luckily so far this year, we’ve fished clean and everything. I think that’s really what’s helped us take over the points lead and keep it throughout the year.”
They won the MEGA tournament with a five-bass limit weighing 17.61 pounds.
Shaw caught their biggest bass, a 5.21-pounder.
Connor Mason and Archer Reese of Meigs County were second with a three-bass total (16.13 pounds), including a 7.44-pounder.
Logan Carter and Jake Pendergrass of Lincoln County were third with four bass (15.76 pounds) and a 6.51-pounder, ahead of fourth-place Chase McCarter and Ty Trentham of Sevier County with four bass (15.19), including a 6.6-pounder.
For the Shaw-Collins team, the MEGA win was a sweet one – especially for Collins.
“It was pretty good, especially considering the week I’d had prior to that,” Collins said. “I didn’t get to practice at all.”
Collins works for his father Bo, and they were on a job site in Covington, Ga., the week before the MEGA tournament when B.J. got bitten by a spider.
By the time he arrived home in North Carolina, Collins realized the spider was poisonous.
“The week of the tournament, I couldn’t even get out of bed,” Collins said. “I had to go to the hospital for four days. When I got home, that’s when I started getting sick. We just showed up on Friday evening before the tournament.”
After about a 40-minute run from Dayton Boat Dock, Collins and Shaw started fishing with Bo Collins serving as captain.
They got lots of bites. Just limited big ones.
“We actually caught a lot of fish, but we only got seven keeper bites,” Collins said. “We were fishing shallow, just fishing moving baits, crank baits, chatter baits, stuff like that.”
Their MEGA win was a great way to finish a tough week.
What kind of spider bit Collins?
“I have no idea,” he said, “and they (the doctors) don’t know either.”