Hooked on fishing
Tournament lures teen to Alabama this week
By Lynn Warren

Fourteen-year-old Stuart Smith, Jr. gets in some practice at a local pond before he travels to Alabama to compete in the National Guard Junior Anglers World Championship.

When Chesterfield's Stuart Smith, Jr. visits Alabama this week to compete in the National Guard Junior Anglers World Championship, it will be another in a long list of firsts for him.

From July 30-August 3, the 14-year-old sophomore at Thomas Dale High School will represent the state in the championship's 1114-year-old age group.

He is also the first Virginia junior state champion from the Bass Federation/Forrest L. Wood (BF/FLW) Championship, an event that he won on the Chicahominy River on June 24. He qualified for the state championship when he placed second in the first District Qualifying Tournament held on Buggs Island Lake last June.

Stuart experienced tournament fishing for the first time after joining the newly formed Junior Bassmasters of Chesterfield Club in May last year.

The five BF/FLW clubs in Virginia are the result of Tim Mick, a longtime Chesterfield County youth sports activist with a personal love of bass fishing.

Stuart shares that same passion for the sport. He has fished with his family since age two.

"He was just a toddler when we would put a cricket on a Bream Buster for him," recalled Tonja Smith, Stuart's mom.

"Now, I fish probably 250 days a year," admits Stuart.

Whenever they're available, Stuart's mom or dad drives him and his small inflatable boat to local rivers and lakes. But far more frequently, Stuart packs up his fishing tackle in a highly organized backpack, which weighs a hefty 40 pounds, and marches about two miles to one of the two ponds in his Chester neighborhood.

His largest catch to date was an eight-pound largemouth bass that came out of one of those ponds.

The Junior Bassmasters of Chesterfield Club has provided Stuart with "a chance to learn more about fishing, to move up into tournament fishing, to earn scholarship money (winning first place in the national tournament includes a $5,000 scholarship package) and maybe learn enough to be able to fish for a living," said Stuart. "If that doesn't work out, I can be a firefighter like my dad and still fish."

He's also considering a career in wildlife biology or wildlife control.

Fishing clubs also put great emphasis on conservation and sportsmanship, a lesson that Stuart has already learned. "At the state championships, I gave Keith Hudson, Jr. one of my baits to fish with." Hudson shared the boat with Stuart, and placed second in the tournament by less than one-third of a pound.

The national championship is a four-day event held on Lake Henry Neely in Gadsden, Alabama. Unlike professional tournaments, the competitors will not have the opportunity to pre-fish the lake, but will depend on the knowledge of their local guide/boat operator to find the fish on this huge impoundment. They will fish only one day, and can weigh in only four fish. The other three days will include orientation meetings, seminars with FLW pros, award ceremonies, the FLW Cup Outdoor Show, a pizza party and free time to see the sights.

FLW pros will compete in their own tournament event on nearby Logan Martin Lake.

During the tournament, Stuart says he'll focus on what he does best: practice. His most trusted techniques are the Texas Rigged worm and the Wacky worm, but he will fall back on a Zoom Speed Craw, if necessary.

So, what would he do if he won the national championship? "They'd have to call an ambulance for me," he admitted.