Jefferson County senior Tanner Herndon signs with Bryan College
BY DAVE LINK
Tanner Herndon and Jaden Purkey have known each other since they were children and are longtime friends.
They’re senior classmates at Jefferson County High School and partners on the school’s Patriot Anglers Fishing Team.
After graduating from Jefferson County and then the summer months, Herndon and Purkey will head their separate ways to pursue college fishing careers.
Herndon signed with Bryan College and Purkey with Carson-Newman in April.
Jefferson County senior Jaden Purkey signs with Carson-Newman
Before going off to college, Purkey and Herndon have at least a couple more bass fishing events with the Patriot Anglers – for starters, the Tennessee BASS Nation’s Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville Championship next Saturday (May 14) on their home lake, Douglas.
“I’m really, really looking forward to it,” Purkey said. “I’ve fished three (local night) tournaments this week, and I’ve been in the top three in almost each one. I’m really excited to be home for one (a high school event). It’s my comfort zone. It’s my place.”
Herndon lives right between Douglas Lake and Cherokee Lake and considers Douglas a special place.
“Douglas is a great fishery,” he said. “I love it. It’s going to be crazy not fishing it every day (after leaving for college). It’s where I won my first tournament. I won it with my grandfather in a Heartland Series tournament during COVID.”
HERNDON: “I’VE BEEN HOOKED”
Herndon played other sports as a youth – football, baseball, and basketball – but fell in love with another sport as a young child.
“I started fishing when I was like 3 and I’ve been hooked on it ever since,” he said.
His grandfather, David Albright, got him started and remains a big part of his fishing career.
Albright serves as boat captain when Herndon and Purkey are fishing bass tournaments.
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“He’s the one that really first put the rod in my hand and I fell in love with it,” Herndon said. “He’s been taking me out since I was 3, and any day I go with him it’s a good day.”
Herndon’s interest in bass fishing piqued during seventh grade when his gym coach told him about Bryan College winning the 2017 Bassmaster College Series National Championship.
“That’s how I really found out about college fishing,” Herndon said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I think I kind of want to do this.’”
And a few years later, he’s going to do it.
He will join William Blount’s Bryson Hatcher as a member of Bryan College’s signing class this year.
“I’m really excited about it,” Herndon said. “It’s going to be a different experience. I’ve always fished around the state. I’ve been to Pickwick. I’ve been to Chickamauga. We’re heading to Kentucky Lake this year for the state championship, but I’ve never really bass fished outside of Tennessee, so it’s definitely going to be a different experience, travelling around the nation, fishing the lakes in Florida, Texas, and the different ways of fishing that they do. You’ve got to learn a lot of different techniques.”
PURKEY: “NO BETTER FEELING”
Purkey has been fishing most of his life but also was serious about other sports through middle school and into high school – particularly baseball and football and wrestling. He played catcher in baseball and was a lineman in football into his freshman year at Jefferson County.
When Jefferson County started a fishing team before his sophomore year, his athletic pursuits changed.
“Whenever they introduced the fishing team, that was my best shot,” Purkey said. “I liked baseball and football, but there is no better feeling than having a bite on the end of that line. It’s something I’ve always been passionate about.”
Since the Patriot Anglers’ start, Purkey’s partner has been his longtime friend, Herndon.
“It’s really fun. We both fish different ways,” Purkey said. “We mesh well together. We never fight, who catches fish, who doesn’t. We’re a team, work really good together. We do our business out on the water and take care of everything or try our best to.”
Purkey had already planned to go to college – probably at Carson-Newman – before being contacted by C-N fishing coach Hunter Sales last fall.
It was a contact that changed Purkey’s college life. He kept in touch with Sales, went fishing with him around the Christmas break, got an offer, and signed scholarship papers in April.
A fishing dream come true.
“I always wanted to go to Carson-Newman,” Purkey said. “I’m not going to say I had that planned out because I really and truly didn’t think I had a chance at college fishing.
“I already had my other plans mapped out and everything else, and one day in the fall of last year, Hunter Sales called me and we kept on staying in touch. Carson-Newman just feels like home. I’m literally 5 or 10 minutes from campus.”
BARNETT-BACON WIN (AGAIN)
Freshman Hayden Barnett and sophomore Will Bacon of the Roane County High School Bass Fishing Team won again April 30 on their home lake, Watts Bar, this time clinching the Tennessee BASS Nation’s Southeast Championship.
Their victory came two weeks after winning the fourth and final stop of the Tennessee BASS Nation’s Bass Pro Shops-Sevierville circuit – an event they also won in 2021 and in 2020 when they won the juniors division.
Barnett and Bacon’s first-place bag in the April 30 Southeast Championship weighed 13.03 pounds.
Amos Goins and Evan Williamson of Rhea County were second (12.76 pounds), ahead of third-place Walker LaRue and Joe Vaulton of Alcoa (11.89), Banks Shaw and B.J. Collins of Sale Creek (11.23) and Logan Withrow and Brayden Crumley and Chilhowee (11.04).
In the juniors’ division, Mason Wampler and Cole Wampler of Rhea County claimed first place (10.63 pounds), ahead of Caden Hoagland and Wilson Shepherd of Alcoa (8.45), T.J. Murray and Jackson Ray of Rhea County (7.42), Tucker Larrance and Jaxson Pierce of Jefferson County (5.24), and Sawyer O’Hara and Eli O’Hara of Alcoa (5.19).