The Citrus High fishing duo of Hunter McPherson and Laramy Strickland took top honors at the Florida State High School Fishing Championship.
McPherson and Strickland hauled in a five-bass limit weighing 29 pounds, three ounces. That total earned the team a state title and also qualifies them for the High School Fishing Southeastern Conference Regional Championship tournament on Lake Lanier in September.
"We had a spot that we found in our pre-fishing yesterday that we thought was holding some good fish,” said McPherson, who won this same event last year with graduated partner Brandon Branch. “We started our morning there and caught our biggest fish of the day – a 9-pound, 12-ounce toad – on a Z-Man Chatterbait. A light went off right then. We realized the fish had moved up a little bit, and soon we picked up an 8-pound, 10-ounce beauty on a jig just a short time later.”
Three other teams also qualified for the Southeastern Regional championships: 2nd place Auburndale High School – Jackson Williams and Bryce Goff, four bass, 14-6; 3rd place West Nassau County High School – Colby Cowart and Cody Hadden, four bass, 14-1 and 4th place Bartow High School – Jeremy Morgan and Steven Singletary, four bass, 12-10.
Rounding out the Top 10: 5th place Florida Student Angler Federation – Travis Conrad and Bailey Hines, five bass, 11-8; 6th place Bartow High School – Hunter Gadd and Shane Schmucker, five bass, 10-10; 7th place Pine Ridge High School – Trevor Brown and Nicholas Sutton, five bass, 10-6; 8th place Monteverde High School – Jake Carter and Will Thomas, three bass, 10-0; 9th place Taylor High School – Austin Murray and Brayden Robinson, three bass, 9-13; 10th place Florida Student Angler Federation – Tyler Woolcott and Parker Meadows, three bass, 9-8.