Despite being a team full of youngsters and being in fourth place heading into the state championships, Reeltown was not about to let anyone stop it.
The Rebels came home with two top-10 finishes en route to the small-school division state title in the Alabama Student Angler Bass Fishing Association championships. The Rebels amassed 787 points in the final tournament, more than 30 points better than the next finisher and surpassed Brooks, North Sand Mountain and Holtville, to claim the top spot.
“Oh, you have no idea how good it felt,” Reeltown fishing coach Chad Ledbetter said. “One of them, of course, was my son Ben so to be a part of that and captain of that was amazing. I’ve watched a lot of these kids from when they were in kindergarten together to playing young football together to wrestling together. To see them go out there and mature like they have and do like they did on the water, I mean, that’s just phenomenal.”
Reeltown had its best tournament of the year on Lake Martin this past weekend to ensure the victory. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.
The Rebels had their work cut out for them. Despite being in a strong position after Day 1, Reeltown needed to step it up — and that it did.
Vann Thomas and Corey Geer weren’t even in the top 50 after Friday, but they pushed through a rain delay and a weather-shortened tournament on Day 2 to earn the Rebels’ best boat finish. They totaled 12.52 pounds, good enough for seventh overall. The individual standings are not broken into small and large school divisions either.
“It was really, really critical that we were able to do what we did on Friday to get us to that point,” Ledbetter said. “Then we had one team that was one of the lower teams going into Saturday, but they went out there and they executed on Saturday and were able to take themselves from like 50th-something place to seventh overall.”
Reeltown’s Ben Ledbetter and Braxton Lemley weren’t far behind, also cracking the top 10 with an eight-place finish. They totaled 12.48 pounds.
What’s even more impressive about Reeltown’s first-place finish was the Rebels did it despite their young age. Thomas is a junior, but Geer is a freshman and Ben Ledbetter and Lemley are only eighth-graders.
“I’m hoping that bodes well,” coach Ledbetter said. “They all know how to put their nose to the grindstone. They just get in there and they fish the entire time. They change up patterns when they’re not working, and they’re not scared to do that. I think that’s going to be the key to these guys being real successful over the next four years.”