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With a recent winter storm and subsequent warming trend, the spawn on Caney lake was delayed just enough to be primed and ready for 130 high school and Junior Bassmasters teams to put their skills to the test.

Louisiana High School BASS Nation held its 1^st annual Caney Lake “High School Hawg Fest” and the tournament absolutely lived up to its name.

111 high school teams showed up to compete for the top prize and a young Walker High School Team of Tyler Covington and Brantley Tate took the top honors bringing a whopping 23.58 pound, 5 bass limit to the scales. They anchored their bag with a hefty 7.04 pound largemouth. That fish was a beauty but their other four fish averaged over 4 pounds each and looked like cookie cutter fish. Big cookie cutter fish!

The second place team of Wade Roberts and Zachary Lambert were close behind with a huge limit and another Caney Lake Hawg that anchored their 22.26 pound bag at 7.21 pounds. Wade and Zachary fish for Barbe High that is known for producing top notch young anglers. These two have had a phenomenal year in our northern division finishing near the top of the leaderboard in every tournament.

In third place, and only .14 pounds behind second was the Ponchatoula team of Peyton Waller and CJ Gatlin. This team that is steadily on the rise, managed a five fish limit for 22.12 pounds. They also anchored their bag with a nice kicker weighing 5.92 pounds but overall their limit was as consistent as it could get with a 4.42 pound average.

The fourth place team anchored their 19.51 pound bag with a nice bass weighing in at 8.03 pounds. It was fun to watch as Jackson Crouch and Landon Miller of Southside High hauled their big bag to the scales with smiles as big as the moon. When the big bass was pulled out of the weigh bag, the crowd gasped and when the weight settled on 8.03 pounds these young men knew they had the big bass on the day. They did have to sweat it out several times as more and more big Caney lake bass came to try to knock them off. In the ends, their bass passed the test to be the biggest on the day.

5^th place was the Central High School team of Matthew Elliott and Nathan Ellis with a very respectable 19.28 pound, 5 fish limit. They also brought in a Caney Lake beauty weighing 7.01 pounds to help their cause.

Matthew and Nathan also anchored the overall team award that went, yet again to the high school fishing powerhouse of Central High School.

Khristian Rousseve and Shamar Pierre of West St. John in Edgard placed 9th, catching 17.9 pounds.

The high school division was incredible with a total of 347 bass weighed in for a total of a whopping 796.19 pounds. For the 111 teams that fished, each boat averaged over three fish per team. Centrals top three bags were all over 13 pounds to lead all schools/ clubs.

When all was said and done, it took over 13 pounds to finish in the top 20 and a whopping over 17 pounds to finish in the top 10.

Congratulations to all our teams who finished in the top of the standings as well made the trip up and and had a blast on Caney.

Any team in the state of Louisiana who didn’t get to fish the Hawg Fest didn’t know what they missed out. They better make plans to fish the 2022 High School Hawg Fest next year. And, we can’t wait to go back.