Six high school fishing teams from Quitman, Alba-Golden and Winnsboro qualified for the Texas High School Bass Association State Tournament after competing at the regional fishing tournament at Lake Palestine on Sunday, April 14.

Alba-Golden team of freshmen Jade Kruse and Paisley Pendergrass advanced to state. Kruse and Pendergrass reeled in a 5.9-pound fish.

Debbra Graves, Alba-Golden fishing team adviser, won team adviser of the year for the THSBA Northeast division

Quitman’s fishing team had two teams advance to state. Seniors Langdon Bautista and Colin “Layton” Brown qualified with a catch weight of 9.01 pounds. This will be the fourth year they have qualified for the state tournament. 

Senior J.C. Brisendine and sophomore Andrew Lord qualified for state with a catch weight of 9.23 pounds. 

Noah Sanders and Cason Ragsdale from Winnsboro qualified with a catch weight of 17.29 pounds.

Winnsboro anglers Jordan Stanford and Jannah Haney qualified with a catch weight of 5.35 pounds. Dawson Whitehurst and Evert Glas also qualified with a catch of 5.35 pounds.

There were 132 teams that qualified for regional after fishing in five divisional tournaments through the year and placing in the top 50 percent of their field. Of those teams, the top 40 percent qualified to move on to state.

The cut line was 5.18 pounds and heavier.

The THSBA State Tournament will be held at Cedar Creek Lake May 10 to 12. Weigh-ins at Athens High School will begin at 3 p.m. and the public is invited to watch the teams compete.

There will also be an elite angler event at Eagle Mountain Lake on June 22 for the Top 10 teams in each of the THSBA eight regional divisions across Texas.

The following Wood County anglers have been invited to this event: Sanders and Ragsdale (Winnsboro), River Simonek and Tristan Rychlik (Mineola) and Jace Mitchel and Danny Dral (Winnsboro).