Camdyn Cranfill (left) and Hayden Barnett of the Kingston Fishing Team.
BY DAVE LINK
Camdyn Cranfill lost the big bass, but it didn’t stop him and Hayden Barnett of the Kingston Fishing Team from having a big day on Norris Lake.
It was Nov. 18, the second stop on the Tennessee BASS Nation’s Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville trail.
And the bass weren’t biting.
Cranfill’s best bite of the day came when he threw a jig in the morning.
“As soon as I hooked it, it came straight up out of the water,” Cranfill said. “It probably jumped 5 feet in the air and it just came off. There was nothing I could do about it, to be honest with you.”
Not to be deterred, Cranfill and Barnett pressed on, finishing with the five-bass limit weighing 13.36 pounds and winning the TBN Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville event.
Even without their biggest bite.
“It was every bit of four pounds,” Cranfill said of the one that got away.
Ethan Rose and Grant Arnold of the Jefferson County Patriot Anglers were second (five bass, 11.97 pounds, 2.87-pounder), ahead of Cole Russell and Jackson Bennett of Anderson County (four bass, 10.13 pounds, 2.99 pounder) and fourth-place Chase McCarter and Ty Trentham of Sevier County (five bass, 9.51 pounds, 2.76-pounder).
In the middle school division, Garrett Johnson and Caleb Robinett of The King’s Academy won with four bass weighing 9.81 pounds, including a 3.03 pounder, with Hunter Massengill and Levi May of Halls Middle in second place (five bass, 8.43 pounds, 2.57-pounder).
Only a total of eight boats in both divisions caught the five-bass limit.
“It was a tougher day, honestly,” Barnett said. “I think that we caught seven or eight keepers and we caught 15 or so fish. We caught a few short fish and we jumped the one off that would have helped that morning.”
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It didn’t matter.
With Cranfill’s father, Hagen, serving as boat captain, Barnett posted his second straight victory on Norris in a TBN Bass Pro event.
Last year, Barnett won the same tournament fishing solo while his partner, Will Bacon, was playing in a golf tournament during that fall-break weekend. Barnett also had a top-15 finish in his first event on Norris.
“Hayden definitely knows his stuff on this place,” Cranfill said while practicing on Norris. “It’s a tough one to figure out and he’s definitely got it figured out, for sure.”
Barnett won last year’s event by catching all largemouth; he and Cranfill won this time with all smallmouth.
They had the limit by about noon after their blastoff at about 8:30 a.m.
“I think we caught our first keeper around 9:30 or 9:45,” Barnett said. “We caught ’em on a jig way up the river, flipping laydowns and bluffs and stuff like that.”
Their biggest bass was a 2.98-pounder.
Neither knew who caught it because several fish were about the same.
“They were basically all little cookie cutters,” Barnett said.
All their keepers were caught on jigs, although they got a couple of bites on spinner baits.
“It was tough,” Cranfill said. “I was expecting to get five keepers, which we did, but it was definitely tough. There wasn’t anything else we had that we could have done. We didn’t have a backup plan, really.”
BASS PRO POINTS RACES
Joe Vaulton and Walker LaRue of the Alcoa Fishing Team lead the TBN’s Bass Pro points race after two events with 22.52 combined pounds in the two events.
Vaulton and LaRue won the first stop Oct. 28 on Ft. Loudon Lake with a 16.13-pound bag; they were 12th on Norris with four bass weighing 6.39 pounds.
Russell and Bennett of Anderson County are second in the points race with 17.28 combined pounds (they had 7.15 pounds at Loudon); Clayton Kelley and Hunter Owens of Karns Fishing are third with 15.06 pounds (8.96 at Loudon, 6.10 at Norris), and Barnett and Cranfill are fourth with 15.01 pounds (just 1.65 pounds at Loudon).
In the middle school points race, May and Massengill of Halls lead after two events with 16.21 pounds (they had 7.78 at Fort Loudon). Johnson and Robinett of TKA are second with 9.81 pounds (0 at Loudon) and Tyson Mcferrin and Crews Mcferrin of Karns are third with 7.04 pounds (2.27 at Loudon, 4.77 at Norris).
BRANDON CARD RESULTS
Clay Bales of South Laurel High in London, Kentucky, won the Brandon Card Open on Norris Lake on Saturday (Dec. 2).
The tournament is hosted by Bassmaster Tour professional Brandon Card, who’s from Caryville, Tennessee, and calls Norris Lake his home waters.
Bales fished solo in the event and won with 14.24 pounds, earning $1,500 in prize money.
LaRue and Vaulton of Alcoa Fishing were second with 9.72 pounds, earning $750. Vaulton, a senior at Alcoa, recently signed to fish for Carson-Newman.
Carson-Newman’s Riley Faulkner and Hayden Gaddis won the college division with 16.86 pounds — earning $2,500 for the victory and $250 for the big bass — ahead of second-place Eli Stevenson and Hunter Palmer of Bryan College with 14.23 pounds, earning $750.
It was tough fishing.
Of the 32 boats in the high school division, 17 had no keepers. And of the 25 college boats, 13 had no keepers.
Cranfill and Barnett were one of the boats without a keeper, a predictable outcome with Cranfill’s results during a practice before the event.
“It’s a lot tougher than last week (for the Bass Pro), I’ll tell you that,” Cranfill said while on Norris. “This cold front has shut ’em down. Dad hasn’t caught a keeper in two days and I haven’t caught a keeper in two days. It’s bad.”
Below are the top-five finishers in the Brandon Card Open:
HIGH SCHOOL
Clay Bales, South Laurel (14.24 pounds, $1,500)
Joe Vaulton and Walker LaRue, Alcoa (9.72 pounds, $750)
Mac Fritts and Reid Chapman, Campbell County (9.20 pounds, $475)
Gabe St. John and Mason Dople, Campbell County (6.35 pounds, $350)
Joseph Mashburn and Kobe Walden, Clinton (5.05 pounds, $275)
COLLEGE
Riley Faulkner and Hayden Gaddis, Carson-Newman (16.86 pounds, $2,750)
Eli Stevenson and Hunter Palmer, Bryan College (14.23 pounds, $750)
Daniel Weber and Paul Southern, Virginia Tech (9.58 pounds, $475)
Joey Bising and Jackson Paden, Tennessee (9.24 pounds, $350)
Logan East and Corey Giles, Bryan College (8.00 pounds, $275)