Tenn-Tom Waterway championship also featured youth scholarship fishing tournament.
For the first time in CrappieMasters history, a father/son team won the circuit’s championship that was held Oct. 5-6 on the Tenn-Tom Waterway near Columbus.
Missouri’s Charles and Travis Bunting came jumped from a first-day position of fifth to take the two-day event with a total of 19 pounds, wining a Nitro Z7 boat rigged out with a 150-horse Mercury.The win wasn’t by much: Less than a pound separated the Buntings from the No. 10 finishers.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
• Paul Eldridge/T.J. Harper — 17.61 pounds
• Kyle Schoenherr/Rodney Neuhaus —17.42 pounds
• George Parker/Darryl Cole 17.39 pounds
• Roger Gant/Bill Gant — 17.37 pounds
• John Harrison/Kent Driscoll — 17.36 pounds
• Michael Walters/Derak Walters — 17.21 pounds
• Jeff Honnell/Jimmy Berry — 17.9 pounds
• Roy Logan/Wade Hendren — 16.89 pounds
• Tim Blackley/Jackie Vancleave — 16.82 pounds
In addition to the championship competition, CrappieMasters also held a youth scholarship fishing competition.
Winning the 10- to 12-year-old age division was Karleigh Phillips of Inverness. Karleigh fished with Ronnie Capps and Steve Coleman, seven-time winners of crappie classics, and weighed in five crappie tipping the scales at 5.18 pounds.
In addition to a huge trophy, Karleigh won a $4,000 college scholarship that will be waiting when this 7th grader graduates from Indianola Academy.
Caleb Roberson, also a Mississippi native, won the 13- to 15-year-old age division, pocketing another $4,000 college scholarship.
The other youth who competed in the competition received $800 Bass Pro Shops gift cards.
Next year’s CrappieMasters Classic will return to Grenada Lake, which has set nearly every record for crappie fishing except for the world-record white crappie, (caught on nearby Enid Lake on July 31, 1957, by Fred Bright).
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