Angling for a title

St. Marys incoming seniors Brandon Gibson and Brayden Hoehn are heading to the Bassmaster National High School Championships on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina next week, as one of two teams representing Ohio in the championship bass tournament.

In the meantime, they've been among the top bass fishermen of any age on Grand Lake, winning the Eagles Open on May 7, placing fourth in the Team Bass Xtreme Open on May 27, and winning four weeknight tournaments as the calendar flipped to summer.

"Grand Lake, being a lake that's shallow and six-inch visibility, that makes it extremely tough to figure out where the fish are and what they're doing," Hoehn said. "So spending many years on that lake, you kind of get an idea of different times of year, what the fish do. Taking what I've learned from there, it's given me a solid base if I go fish new lakes of what times of year, what they're kind of doing - at least for shallow water fishing."

Gibson and Hoehn qualified for next week's Bassmasters national as the runner-up in the Ohio Bass Nation state tournament on Alum Creek on April 29-30, weighing in with 24.69 pounds over five largemouth bass. The national tournament takes the top 10% from each state as well as some from Canada, for a total of 480 entrants this year.

Lake Hartwell, also a man-made lake, is a popular pro tournament spot, covering 56,000 acres and averaging 45 feet deep with a mix of spotted and largemouth bass.

"We've done a lot, a lot, of research," Gibson said. "It's a very deep, clear lake, basically the opposite of Grand Lake. So we plan on definitely using our electronics, taking advantage of that, finding some good schools. But out there there's a lot of spotted bass mixed in with largemouth, and largemouth are definitely going to win the tournament, because overall, (there's) a lot higher ceiling for their size."

Gibson and Hoehn met at the start of freshman year and bonded over a shared love of bass fishing, and with separate tournament experience, they joined up to start fishing in tournaments on Grand Lake and then high school tournament series.

Heading into a tournament in an unfamiliar spot, they work together compile research on a given lake based on Youtube videos of pro fishermen that recommend baits or types of structure. On the day of, they each test a technique or bait from their research until they find something that's working.

"Maybe he starts with a moving bait while I throw something slow, or vice versa," Hoehn said. "That way we're both throwing different techniques or different presentations, giving more opportunity to figure out the fish. Then once we figure the fish out through the day, we can kind of dial in on what more what we need to target and throw."

Next week's tournament won't be their first time fishing on a national stage. After their sophomore year, in June 2022, they placed 12th in the Student Angler Federation's (SAF) Fishing World Finals on Lake Pickwick in Florence, Alabama.

They came close to missing the final round altogether the day before. Hoehn said their four-day tournament changed late on day three, when they had to finish in the top 10 of the "second-chance" tournament to get a shot at the finals. After searching for good spots farther offshore for the first two and a half days, Hoehn and Gibson fell back on their scouting and doubled back to a stretch of underwater brush that had paid off earlier.

"We had an hour and a half left, and we made the decision to go back to these brush piles and stumps, because that's where we'd caught our fish all week," Hoehn said. "We were in the right place at the right time, the right fish were there, and we caught just shy of 12 pounds in three fish, placed fourth out of (334) teams in that knockout round, which made us fish Saturday."

With a clean slate to start Saturday, they spent all day on the same patch of brush and stumps and ultimately weighed in at 8-11 over three fish.

That finish also earned them scholarship offers from Kentucky Christian University, which recognized them as the top sophomores in the country, and from Tiffin, which awarded them as the highest finishers from Ohio.

Hoehn, who was also recognized as one of two students in Ohio on the Bassmasters High School All-State Fishing Team, said he's still taking college visits, including at Campbellsville University and the University of North Alabama this week, and he and Gibson and are hoping for athletic scholarships to join a college fishing team.

Their SAF run was more turbulent this year, starting with the state championship on June 3 on the Ohio River in Gallipolis, which Hoehn called the toughest spot they'd ever fished. They mustered just two fish totaling three pounds, but finished sixth on a tough day across the board.

In the national championship June 20-24 in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, they were the last boat drawn, meaning they left last the first day and had to return first the second day. That second day, fishing on Mississippi River pools, they got stuck behind barges at a lock, missed their weigh-in time and had the day's results nullified.

"That was probably one of the worst feelings ever, sitting there knowing we were late, but at the same time, it was a pretty dang good lesson," Hoehn said. "It was an eye-opener, that it's not just the fishing that counts. You've got to look at all the other perspectives outside of just catching the fish."

In the meantime, they've had plenty of accolades on Grand Lake, including the Eagles Open win. Hoehn caught the biggest bass weighed in on the lake this year, coming in at 6.32 pounds.

On a drastically different lake next week, and with a three-fish limit per day, Hoehn said their strategy would be the reverse of a weeknight on Grand Lake.

"Grand Lake, we're looking for, honestly, quantity, because the more bites we get, that might mean that we can generate a bigger bite," he said. "Now, going into this national championship, it's a three fish limit, we're looking for quality. We're probably going to throw some bigger baits and look for areas that hold better fish."

Hoehn and Gibson plan to fish Caesar Creek in Waynesville on Saturday, then head straight down to South Carolina to prepare. Fishermen get three days of practice to acquaint themselves with the lake, then get an off day Wednesday before the tournament, which runs Thursday, July 27 to Saturday, July 29.

The Bassmasters tournament operates differently from the SAF, with no second-chance tournament and only the top 12 moving on to finals on the third day. Finishes are determined by overall weight, rather than just the amount caught on the final day.

"It's either, you make it or you don't," Hoehn said. "So we've got to have good fish for the two days to make it to that third day."