MLF Format a Success in Bradley Roy’s High School Open
By Mason Prince
This past weekend more than 200 teams of high school anglers converged on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky for the seventh annual Bradley Roy High School Open Presented by Covercraft. For the first six years, the tournament was strictly a five-fish-limit format, but with a new year came a new format. Roy presented the MLF format to the high school anglers and turned their Championship Round into a miniature MLF Cup event on the more than 65,000-acre body of water.
“To have 200 boats out there competing on the first day was just amazing to see,” Roy said of the first day of the tournament. “We’ve grown so much over seven years and it’s cool to see just how far we’ve come. This is the first year we’ve competed on Lake Cumberland just because we’ve gotten too big for the smaller lakes in the area. Once we got to the top five teams, I really treated it like an MLF Cup. I didn’t tell them where we were going until the morning of and gave them all SCORETRACKER® and an official in their boat.”
A Close Finish On Cumberland
The top five teams rolled up to the boat ramp on Lake Cumberland and were told they could only fish a specific area of the lake during their three periods of competition. Will Carnes and Jason Denney ended up with a first-place finish thanks to their five fish for 7 pounds, 1 ounce. The second-place team of Micah Adams and Chase Rawlins fell just two ounces short of Carnes and Denney with three fish for 6-15. The tension was palpable on the water for Roy as he sat and watched each of the five teams compete under a format that had never fished before.
“I followed all five teams all day and it was really cool to see them all react to SCORETRACKER® updates,” Roy said. “My favorite part was to watch their body language change when they found out how their competition was doing. It was a learning experience for them just like it was for me. Those updates can really derail you if you let them, but I think the kids hung in there tough.”
Looking Forward to the Future
Each of the top five teams earned scholarship money thanks to their Championship Round appearances with Carnes and Denney taking home the largest prizes. As a Kentucky native, Roy loves putting on this event every year in his home state to showcase the quality young anglers the Bluegrass State has to offer. Thanks to the success of year one of the MLF format, Roy can’t wait to see what the future holds for not only his tournament but the future of bass fishing.
“The future of bass fishing is certainly bright and these kids are a prime example of that,” Roy complimented. “It was really cool to see the faces of all the kids when I told them that we were competing with the MLF format on the final day. I hope that everyone gets an opportunity to fish the MLF format because it really is the future.”
The final standings for the top five teams of the Bradley Roy High School Open are as follows:
- Will Carnes and Jason Denney 7-01
- Micah Adams and Chase Rawlins 6-15
- Allen Powe and Johnathon Combs 3-12
- Jake Lycans and William Copley 2-06
- Andrew Haney and Blake Marcum 1-15
Photos Courtesy of Bradley Roy