Palmetto Boat Center Tournament Trails College & High School Tournaments – December 2-3
Palmetto Boat Center Tournament Trails, LLC, will be hosting two tournaments at Lake Hartwell in Anderson, SC. The Palmetto Boat Center College Tournament Trail will be fishing on Friday. December 2, 2022, and Saturday December 3, 2022. The full field will compete on Friday, and the top 15 will compete on Saturday. Additionally, the Palmetto Boat Center High School Tournament Trail will compete on Saturday, December 3, 2022. Blast off will be approximately 7:00 am each day. Friday’s Weigh In for the College Event will start at 3:00pm. Saturday’s weigh in for middle school teams will begin at 1:30 pm. High School teams will start at 3:00 pm, and the College finale will be approximately 5:00 pm. The event will be held at the Green Pond Landing & Event Center, which is located at 470 Old Green Pond Road, Anderson, SC 29625. The event is free to the public.
“We are expecting over 225 boats for this weekend’s high school tournament, which equates to 450 students and 225 volunteer adult captains. Of those teams, we are expecting over 60 middle school teams to compete” said Marty Walker, Tournament Director, and owner of title sponsor Palmetto Boat Center. “High School fishing in the Upstate remains one of the fastest growing activities in school. Fishing is a competitive activity that is open and challenging for everyone. This High School event is a super tournament, where all four divisions compete together to see who the best for the day on Lake Hartwell is.
“The 2-Day College Tournament will feature over 50 teams from colleges across the Carolina’s. This event concludes the fall regular season for the students, many who fished our high school trail” said Chris Kanute, Tournament Director for the College Division. “They will have to catch a good bag to advance to day 2.”
The high school anglers will be competing for the heaviest five bass limit, and for a $2,000 scholarship to the winning team. The College anglers will be finalizing the Angler’s of the year and School of the year on Saturday.
The event is sponsored by Palmetto Boat Center, Academy Sports & Outdoors, Shimano Fishing, Nitro Performance Bass Boats, Phoenix Bass Boats, Tracker Off Road, Mercury Marine, Visit Anderson, and the Anderson County Parks & Recreation Department.
“These student anglers are the future of our sport,” said Walker. “It’s amazing how this trail continues to grow. We see new students participating each year. We have teams from all over the upstate.” Participants from the trail have advanced to college competition with schools such as Lander, Clemson, Erskine, USC, and Emmanuel just to name a few.
The Palmetto Boat Center High School Tournament Trail was established in the fall of 2015 to create a large-scale competitive environment for the high school fishing teams and clubs in South Carolina. The trail filled the need for central coordination and operation of high school tournaments. Too many times, teams were scheduling tournaments at the same time as another school, which reduced participation. In our first full season we held seven tournaments, averaging 125 boats from over 25 high schools in South Carolina.
Now in our seventh full season, the trail consists of eight regular season tournaments, with four groups to manage field size. A middle school division exists to encourage participation from younger competitors. The teams compete for points in each tournament to determine the Anglers of the Year and the School of the Year. The top teams from each division qualify for the end of season three day “Classic” tournament which is an invitational event.
Our regular season events are all sanctioned tournaments by BASS, as qualifying points events towards the BASS Nation High School National Championship. In the summer of 2022, the trail sent four teams to participate in the National Championship that was held on Lake Hartwell.
For more information on the tournament trail, contact Marty Walker at 864-561-2026, [email protected].