Joey 'da fish' Nania

Repeats as Junior Bassmaster World Champion

Junction City, KS - November 8, 2008

 

Joey 'da fish' Nania, 17, from Liberty Lake, WA and member of the Inland Empire Bass Club, captured his second Junior Bassmaster World Championship Saturday winning the 2008 Junior Bassmaster Championships held on Geary County State Lake, Kansas. Joey and 5 other highly skilled divisional champions from the US and Canada battled temperatures in the low 30's at launch time.  Joey towed his Nitro Z-7 from Action Marine Northwest 1500 miles to Kansas with his father so he could pre-fish Geary.  A move that paid off.  

 

The first fish of the day came early in the morning on a Stanley jig coupled with a Team All-Star rod and Pflueger Summit reel.  Unfortunately it measured 1/8^th inch short of the 15 inch limit. "I must have measured that fish 10 times just trying to get the tail to touch but it was just that short."  Since the bite was slow Joey picked up his go to equipment, an All Star 7 foot rod with a Pflueger President reel, 10 pound McCoy Mean Green mono and a Spro Little John crankbait and set out to crank up a win with a reaction bite.  After another 2 hours of cranking the rocky bottom of Geary the first of his 2 legal fish hit.  A beautiful 2 lb 1 oz smallmouth surprising Joey.  "I heard there were supposed to be smallies in here but didn't see one the entire time I prefished.  This one surprised me as it swiped at my crankbait.  It was such a soft bite I had to gradually slide it in to the boat." 

 

After that the fishing got even tougher, with 20 mile per hour winds and clouds. After another 3 hours of cranking Joey nailed a two pound largemouth.  "I've been in these situations before so I knew that when the bite is tough you just have to keep with it, make a lot of casts, cover water and work every cast as carefully as possible.  The largie hit my Spro Little John crankbait with just 10 minutes left in the competition.  I have to admit I yelled pretty loud after that one!"  Joey added, "I was really pleased with my equipment.   The Pflueger reels worked flawlessly all day long in some pretty cold weather.  All I had to do was think about fishing, stay focused on that and ignore my frozen fingers!  Thanks to McCoy Mean Green Line backlashes were almost non-existent.  That is a real advantage in cold weather because picking out a birds nest is almost impossible with frozen fingers!"  Joey is no stranger to cold weather fishing in many early and late season tournaments in the Northwest under extreme conditions.

 

Joey's ability to stay focused brought success in the form of two fish for a total weight of 4 lbs. 1 oz to take the lead. With two anglers left to weigh-in Keith Alan, BASS Tournament MC put Joey on the proverbial hot seat on the BASS Elite stage.   The final two anglers came to the scales without any fish for their efforts.  Joey's bag netted him the tournament win for a $5000 college scholarship and the Purolator Big Fish Award and an additional $1000 scholarship.  Triton, Mercury and Lowrance sweetened the pot by awarding a fully rigged aluminum bass boat valued at over $8,000. 

 

Special thanks to all of our friends at the Inland Empire Bass Club and Joey's sponsors including American Family Insurance (thank goodness we didn't need it!) Live Line Baits, Stanley Lures, Spro, Gamakatsu, Pflueger, All-Star, Action Marine, Nitro and McCoy Line.