MOULTRIE – Colquitt County’s Jake Wilkes and Hardin Roberts overcame numbing cold and reluctant fish last Saturday on Lake Seminole to qualify for the Georgia High School Association’s bass fishing state finals.

In the first of the four regional qualifying tournaments, 200 boats put in on Lake Seminole, but only 55 teams weighed in.

The top 25 qualified for the May 14 finals at Clarks Hill Lake, including Wilkes and Harden who claimed the final spot by weighing one bass at 3 pounds, 3 ounces.

Only five teams reached the five-fish limit, including the Bainbridge Bass Cats’ Gage Sellars and Brock Lewis, who   took first place with 20 pounds, 10 ounces.

Colquitt County coach Will Stuckey said low temperatures and wind blowing from the north-northeast made it difficult to find fish that don’t like to abandon their winter haunts in cold weather.

He said only 18 boats weighed double-digits.

“But that’s fishing,” Stuckey said. “You have to learn to battle the conditions.”

Now in its second year as a GHSA sport, bass fishing is showing growth and popularity as evidenced by the 200 teams that took to the lake in less-than-ideal conditions last Saturday.

Stuckey said that Colquitt County’s first team last year had 12 members, including the team of Jacob Brightwell and Hunter Horne that placed 10th in the state championship at Lake Lanier with a five-bass catch of 14 pounds and 9 ounces.

A second Packers team of Preston Williamson and Chaz Odom placed 44th at Lake Lanier with a five-fish limit of 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

This year’s Packer bass fishing team has 34 members. Six two-student teams qualified for Lake Seminole regional.

In addition to the duo of Wilkes and Roberts, the teams of Brightwell and Horne, Rickie Yates and Dextra Polite Jr., John Davis Summerlin and Hayden Hamm, Parker May and Turner McDaniel and Zach Faircloth and Ethan Hurst competed.

Stuckey said a local qualifying tournament will be held to determine which six teams will represent Colquitt County in the second qualifier, scheduled for Feb. 12 on Lake Oconee.

The other two state qualifiers will be held on March 19 at West Point Lake and April 16 on Lake Lanier.