Idaho's Brandon Palaniuk won the BASS Federation Nation Championship today at Louisiana's Red River, catching a 12-00 final-day bag to top the field by nearly 5 pounds with a 3-day total of 29-09.
“Since the first time I was taken out in a bass boat when I was 8 years old, I have been thinking about making the Classic,” he said. “And since I started fishing the Federation when I was 16, I started dreaming about winning one of these (annual championships).”
BASS reported that he fished a Lucky Craft Skeet Reese Mini crankbait around a rock jetty and flipped a grassy backwater area with a Texas-rigged Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver. Full details of his winning pattern will be posted soon.
George Crain of Alabama was 2nd with 24-10. Joining Palaniuk (Western) and Crain (Southern) as division winners at the 2011 Bassmaster Classic will be Oklahoma's Dale Hightower (Central), Delaware's Brian LaClair (Mid-Atlantic), Vermont's Sean Alvarez (Eastern) and Indiana's David Watson (Northern).
The Junior Bassmaster World Championship, which took place Friday on nearby Cross Lake, resulted in two Eastern Division anglers squeaking out titles by mere ounces. Alexander Wetherell of Connecticut won in the 15-18 age group by 2 ounces with a total of four fish tallying 4-5. Christopher Catucci of Rhode Island won in the 11-14 age division with two bass weighing 5-12.
