Bainbridge Bass Cats Middle Schoolers Place First, Second On Seminole

Cole Henderson (left) and Fisher Baty with their winning fish from the Lake Seminole tournament.

Fisher Baty and Cole Henderson, of Bainbridge, had quite the weekend on Lake Seminole fishing two different Florida Bass Federation Junior/High School Series tournaments. The pair of middle-school anglers racked up an impressive prize haul of $800 worth of Bass Pro Shop gift cards with an impressive second-place finish in Saturday’s tournament, then another stellar showing on Sunday where they managed a first-place finish.

“I think there were 130 boats or so in Saturday’s event and close to 120 on Sunday. They scheduled the event so the kids could fish two back-to-back tournaments on the lake,” said Matt Baty, Fisher’s dad.

Cole and Fisher are both members of their middle school fishing team, the Bainbridge Bass Cats. Cole is an eighth grader on the team and is in his third season with the Cats. Fisher, is currently a sixth grader on the squad.

The anglers relied strictly on a deep-water pattern both days, focusing on fishing deep timber in Spring Creek to get bit.

“I was mostly throwing a Senko on my drop-shot rig, and Fisher was throwing a Berkley Bottom Hopper on his. Green pumpkin was our most productive color,” said Cole.

When the worm bite slowed, the pair turned to a deep-diving crankbait to get the job done.

“We were throwing a Berkley Dredger 25.5 around that deep timber, and it was also getting us some quality bites,” said Fisher.

Despite less-than-optimal conditions, the pair of anglers managed to catch eight to 12 fish each day of the event, managing an impressive bag of fish on Sunday that went a little better than 14 pounds.

The duo is currently sitting in fourth place in the points standings with the Florida Bass Nation and needs one more solid finish later this spring to make it into the state championship.

“Seeing these kids get to enjoy this school fishing is good stuff, man. I can’t say enough about the Florida Bass Nation and the events they put on. The director and all of the staff goes above and beyond to make sure all of the kids enjoy these events,” said Matt.

Both Cole and Fisher have aspirations of continuing fishing with the Bass Cats team for the duration of their middle and high school years and are hopeful to one day continue that journey onto the collegiate scene.

The Bass Cats as a whole had a phenomenal team performance in the event, with every boat managing to weigh in fish, and in the High School Division, anglers Caleb Logue and Hayden Reynolds managed a first-place finish on Sunday, as well.

Review full result’s from Sunday’s Tournament.