On July 16th the second tournament of the 2016 – 2017 IBN High School Series took place.

Lake Jacksonville is one of the new locations for the series and knowing the recent history of the lake for big fish we were all looking forward to a good tournament.

The takeoff began at 6:30 as the anglers made their way to their first spot with high expectations. Jacksonville has been known to produce some really big bass and I was hoping to get a chance to weigh in a good one.

It was about 45 minutes before the anglers needed to return and the Team of Chris Thompson and Matt Reimer came in and asked to weigh in early. They had a limit of fish and some of them were not doing so good in their live well. As I watched them bring up their limit they either had a good bag of fish or too much water for them to carry. First they said they had a good fish for big bass and it certainly was. The fish toped the scale at 5.99 lbs. Then the five fish limit weighed in at 13.57 lbs. They released the fish and all of them were fine. It is great to see a team concerned about fish care like they were.

As the rest of the anglers returned for the weigh in we heard there were several more limits and a couple of big bass coming in as well. As the Sandwich Team took the hot seats the weigh in started.

Team after team came up and tried to bump them out but no luck. The Macomb High School team of Walley Bloomer and Chuck Thompson was next to weigh in. They had 4 fish but they were good ones. The teams big bass weigh in at 5.29 lbs. and without that 5th fish they had a total weight of 11.83 lbs.

The last team to try and take the hot seats were Austin Bickel and Nate Bickel from Midland High School. There big bass weighed in at 3.32 lbs and their limit was 11.21 lbs. The weigh in was over and Chris Thompson and Matt Reimer from Sandwich became the event champions. Congratulations for a job well done.

Along with the top 3, the 4th and 5th place teams also qualified for the IBN State Championship next June and they were, 4th Place Wyatt Colvin and Isabelle Colvin from Midland High School and 5th Place, Drew Herrmman and Wyatt Gabby from Marion High School. Congratulations to all 5 qualifying teams.

The next IBN High School Series event will be on Pool 13, out of Savanna Illinois, Savanna City Marina launch on August 6th. For more information on the IBN High School Series visit our facebook page, www.illinoisbassnation.com