Some of John Garrett’s earliest bass fishing memories come from days spent on Kentucky Lake. He remembers frequent weekend trips with his grandad – driving up from Union City, Tenn., to the fabled fishery about an hour away.
"It started when I was 7 or 8 years old,” Garrett said. “For about 4 or 5 years, we’d come out here just about every weekend … He’s taught me everything he knows, and he knows his stuff pretty well.”
Those memories will always be with Jhn Garrett, but now he has a few more for the mental scrapbook – he’s gained a spot in the 2017 Bassmaster Classic, and he did it on the same body of water where he learned to fish.
Garrett, a 20-year old incoming junior at nearby Bethel University, won the Bassmaster College Series Classic Bracket on Saturday when he weighed a 14-13 bag limit in front of a crowd filled with familiar faces in downtown Paris. That was more than enough weight to defeat Texas State University’s Evan Coleman, who had an unfortunate day and didn’t catch a weighable fish.
After Coleman took the stage empty-handed, the fans in attendance knew Garrett had won the single-elimination tournament. Garrett was the only angler to catch a limit through 2 days of fishing, and he did so again on Saturday. Although total weight didn’t count in this event (only how you stacked up head-to-head against your daily opponent mattered), Garrett’s 3-day haul of 46-09 was impressive. Coleman had the second highest total, and that was exactly 30-04 behind the winner.
“There’s a lot of emotion going through me right now,” Garrett said. “I’m just happy I got blessed today and how things turned out. I’m an hour away from my hometown, and I’m pretty sure the whole city is up there by the stage right now. If I had to do this, it’s a great place to do it right here.”
Garrett, the No. 4 seed in the eight-man tournament, established a pattern early in the week and stuck with it throughout. On the first day, when he defeated No. 5 seed Sam Stone of Texas State, he boated five bass in the 2 1/2 - pound range by going first to a shallow hump about a mile from the launch site at Paris Landing State Park, and then moving another 15 miles south on Kentucky Lake where he fished a ledge in approximately 15 feet of water.
On Friday, he lit into his biggest limit of the tournament – a 19-07 bag that was by far the heaviest of the event, and handily dispatched No. 2 seed Taylor Bivins of Kansas State. Saturday, Garrett caught 35 keepers and had a few of his biggest bites break off, preventing his 14-13 from going even heavier.
On the hump, he threw a small crankbait for keepers, and his bigger bites later in the day came on a 3/4-ounce wobble head with a Magnum Green Pumpkin Trick Worm.
“That worm seemed to be the deal,” Garrett said.
The Top 4 teams at last week’s College National Championship traveled to northwest Tennessee for the bracket event. The eight anglers were seeded individually and fished in a head-to-head format.
The 2017 Classic will be held on Lake Conroe near Houston, Texas, March 24-26h.
“I’m trying not to think about that too much and stress on it,” Garrett said. “I’m going to let this sink in. But I can guarantee when I get to the Classic, I’m going to have a good time and enjoy it.”
In addition to the Classic berth, Garrett won $7,500 to cover fishing expenses, and he earned free entry to all nine of the Bassmaster Opens in 2017. He will have use of a Nitro boat and a fully rigged Toyota truck for the year.
