NEWS

Father and Son Team Pride and Austin Weaver Prepare For ABT Championship

Father / Son Team Austin and Pride Weaver Prepare for ABT Championship
by Dan O’Sullivan

September 12, 2017 – Decatur, Ala. – Fishing has long been a family affair. The number of children who cite a parent or grandparent as the person responsible for getting them into fishing is astounding. To see some of those same people gravitate towards competing in fishing tournaments together is heartwarming.

One of those teams that competes in the Alabama Bass Trail Northern Division is Austin and Pride Weaver. The North Division team just completed their second season in the division, and they qualified for the ABT Championship as well as the Bassmaster Team Championship by finishing the year in fifth place in their division.

Austin, the younger Weaver, said that their success is a family affair, but he owes it all to his father. “He taught me everything I know about fishing, and that’s a lot,” he said. “We work together in the boat to come up with a plan and work together to make adjustments when the plans don’t work out; it’s how we do things.”

Their efforts produced 971 points in the division, and the highlight of their year, a 10th place finish at Smith Lake in April. Had it not been for their team work approach, that finish may not have been. “We try to work together to figure out what is going to be the best pattern for the day,” said Weaver. “We tend to look for areas that hold groups of fish as opposed to fishing patterns, and we love to run a bank; that saved us at Smith Lake.”

Weaver reported finding a pair of areas they thought would work in the event, but they didn’t pan out. “We didn’t have a fish at 12:30, so we decided to try and salvage the day,” he said. “We started running some bluff shorelines until we got a blowup on a Spook topwater, and once we did, we were able to recover.”

He said they are excited for the ABT Champions, as well as the chance to compete in the Bassmaster Team Championship, but they are not looking ahead. “We haven’t started practicing for Logan Martin yet, but we’re thinking about it,” he said. “We don’t want to get out there too early and have everything change by the time we compete, so we’ll start in a couple of weeks.”

He said that he has a hope for the way it would work out,” I’d love for us to be in the top five after day one and have a good day two to put it away,” said Weaver. “It would be really cool to do it with my dad too; there’d be some high fivin’ goin on in the boat that day.”

The sponsors of the 2017 Alabama Bass Trail include; Bill Penney Toyota, Phoenix Bass Boats, Garmin, Academy Sports & Outdoors, Wind Creek Hospitality – Wetumpka, Wind Creek Hospitality – Montgomery, Alabama Tourism Department, SCA Performance, T-H Marine Supplies, Wedowee Marine, AFTCO, Fish Neely Henry Lake.com, Lew’s Fishing, YETI, E3 Apparel, and Alabama Power.

For information about Alabama Bass Trail and for complete tournament standings visit www.alabamabasstrail.org.