Students finish first fishing season
Albany High bass fishing team members Riley Green and Max Balliew competed in four of five Texas High School Bass West Division fishing tournaments this year, placing just a few points too low to continue on to the regional tournament next month.
The pair landed two bass for a total weight of 4.04 pounds at last weekend’s tournament at Lake Whitney.
They caught three bass, weighing a combined 4.87 pounds at the first tournament at Lake Granbury on Oct. 6.
However, they were unable to land any fish at tourneys on Lake Lewisville in early December or Lake Texoma the first Saturday in February.
“The boys fished really good and hard, but the weather hasn’t helped,” said boat captain Jerry Green. “At Lewisville, the high temperature was 38 degrees with straight down rain, at one of the other tourneys we had drizzle and a high in the 40s, and we had fog at another.”
The team would have qualified for the regional tournament, even without catching any more fish, if they had been able to collect participation points from a November tournament at Possum Kingdom that they were unable to attend.
“We had originally thought that we could qualify without that event, and we were already booked on an elk hunting trip to New Mexico,” said Jerry Green.
Since the elk trip was a once-a-year opportunity and the tournament they would miss was originally scheduled to be at Lake Whitney, several hours away, the Greens went hunting and Max Balliew tried but was unable to find another boat captain for the tournament.
A last-minute change swapped the schedule, and the AHS team’s closest lake, the one they are most familiar with, ended up being the one they missed.
“We hated to miss it, but we got four elk, filled the freezer, and had a really good time,” said Jerry Green. “Even though we didn’t make the regional tourney, the boys learned a lot and improved over the year. They are only 16, so they are still on the young side of it.”
The team plans to participate next year, but they are hoping that they can fish closer to Albany, according to Jerry Green.
“I think we might look at being in a different division next year, hopefully one where we don’t have to travel so far and will fish on lakes that we are more familiar with,” said the boat captain. “The closest one we went to this year was two-and-a-half hours away.”
The Albany bass fishing team began last year, and this was the first year for them to compete in multiple tournaments.
There were a total of 235 teams competing in the West Division, and Balliew and Riley Green were within four places of qualifying for the regional tournament.
