Pickett County celebrating a second consecutive national championship for High School anglers Rex Reagan and Max Moody.
Pickett County Fishing Coach Anthony Scott said the team managed to overcome a difficult start during their first title run before finding historic success. Scott said the duo followed that performance by winning a second national title at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.
“It just means the world to see the young man develop into what we all seen coming as far as his fishing talent,” Scott said. “It means the world to the Pickett County as me as a coach and then all the the community as a whole of Rex and Max being able to, you know, take that and, you know, not only win it once, but he, you know, they’ve won it twice, you know, took back-to-back.”
Scott said the team is now one of only two schools in the United States to hold multiple national titles.
Scott said the team sat in approximately 100th place after the first day of their first championship tournament with a catch weighing roughly six pounds. Scott said the anglers responded on the second day by weighing in a three-fish limit of over 21 pounds, which established a new record for the largest bag in Bassmaster history.
“I called Rex’s dad Tim and was talking to Tim,” Scott said. “And Rex was upset and was like, hey, we’re just gonna come home. I, you know, I’m done. I’m gonna come home. And I’m like, Rex, don’t do that. You need to stay down there and just put your head down and grind. To see him go down to the Lake Hartwell on another difficult body of water that he doesn’t get to see very often just shows what kind of angler Rex and Max are to go down there and, and get that job done.”
Scott said Reagan maintains a high level of intensity on the water and often travels the entire length of a lake to find quality fish. Scott said the fishing program relies on donations and local business sponsorships to function.
“The little feller, he fishes 100 mile an hour,” Scott said. “He don’t, he don’t ever slow down. And so he covers as much water as, as possible, all during practice. And then when it comes tournament day, like if he, if he has to run, you know, the whole length of the lake just to make sure he has the right quality of fish to bring back into the weigh-in, that’s what Rex Reagan does.”
Scott said Reagan recently won a Bassmaster Adult Series event on Lake Douglas, which qualified him for a future tournament. Scott said a successful performance in that upcoming event would allow Reagan to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series.
“It’s kind of neat to even think that Rex could be the, youngest, we’ll say the youngest angler in Bassmaster history ever to qualify for Elite Series,” Scott said. “So he’s in the, you know, he won the Bassmaster Adult Series here, a few months ago, up on Lake Douglas. And whenever he won that, that qualified him to go compete in another tournament, in later in the year. And he’ll be able to and if he can do successful in that tournament and he will be qualified to fish the Bassmaster Elite Series, which is just phenomenal.”
Reagan will compete in a qualifying tournament later this year.
