TUSCUMBIA, AL – Alabama students in grades 7-12 can fish their way to college on Saturday May 18. The Timmy Horton High School Bass Anglers Challenge 2013 on Pickwick Lake offers $20,000 in college scholarships. The tournament, which will be staged out of the Rose Trail Park boat ramp west of Cherokee, is open to students in public, private and home schools. Entry is free.

Horton, a Bassmaster Elite Series angler from Muscle Shoals, expects the student anglers in the tournament to have little trouble finding plenty of big bass in Pickwick Lake. “Pickwick is on fire right now. It’s one of the best bass lakes in America,” Horton said. “This tournament is going to be loads of fun for the kids and for the boat captains too. Best of all, it’s going to help the kids continue their education after they complete high school.”

Students will compete in two divisions, grades 7-9 and 10-12. Trophies will be awarded to the top teams in each division. The scholarships will be awarded to the top individual anglers in each division.

Read more: Timmy Horton High School Bass Anglers Challenge to pay $20,000 in Scholarship Money

SHEFFIELD - a pair of University of North Alabama freshmen bested 122 anglers from throughout the South to win a Fishlife Collegiate Tour bass tournament on Pickwick Lake.

Sloan Pennington of Childersburg and Caleb Dennis caught five largemouth bass weighing 19.78 pounds to win the tournament, that was staged out of Riverfront Park on Saturday, Sept. 19. They earned $1,500.
John Davis and Payton McGinnis of the University of Alabama finished in second place with 16.70 pounds. Austin Hanley of University of Alabama-Birmingham, who fished alone, was third with 16.46 pounds. Taylor Thompson and Blake Yarbrough of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Ga., finished fourth with Mason MacAnally and Austin Maynard of UAB rounding out the top five.

 It was the only second collegiate level tournament for Pennington and Dennis, who were teammates on the Fayetteville High School fishing team. Both said the opportunity to fish at the collegiate level for a school only minutes from Pickwick Lake were big factors in their decision to attend UNA.

“Education came first, but having a fishing team was a close second for why we came to UNA,” Dennis said.

“We had never fished Pickwick Lake before we came to UNA, now we fish it almost every day. It’s an awesome lake,” Pennington said.

Pennington said he and Davis used a variety of techniques to catch their fish in the Fishlife tournament. “We caught fish in a bunch of different places, using a bunch of different baits at a bunch of different depths. We were just junk fishing all day.”

The tournament was sponsored by Colbert County Tourism and Convention Bureau. Executive Director Susann Hamlin said sponsorship will pay dividends as the anglers return to their colleges and universities and talk to their friends about Pickwick Lake and encourage them to visit the Shoals.