A Sulphur High Fishing Team junior is left-handed and more experienced on rivers than impoundments, while his tournament partner, also a junior at the high school, cut his bass fishing teeth on lakes and writes and casts with his right hand.
The combination works well considering Cade Whittington and Gage Dowers finished third as sophomores in the Louisiana High School Bass Nation (LHSBN) race for Angler(s) of the Year behind Rayne High School’s Travis Meche and Chance Watson, the winning team, and runners-up Nicholas England and Tyler Medica of Alexandria Senior High. They also qualified for and fished the 2025 Bassmaster High School National Championship from July 31-Aug. 2 at Clarks Hill Reservoir in Georgia.
“Cade is an unbelievable partner,” Dowers said. “We’re opposite. We pick up each other’s slack and we make really good partners. I wouldn’t pick another partner. We made nationals last year in an old boat so we didn’t have any LiveScope or anything like that, so it was a bigger achievement at the time.”
“We fish together pretty good,” Whittington said, noting each bass angler’s difference is a plus. “He’s right-handed and I’m left-handed. He can cast in places I can’t and I can do the same for him.”
Now they’re riding in a 2022 Phoenix 921 Elite II powered by a 250-h.p. Mercury ProXS and, yes, it’s loaded with modern marine electronics, including forward facing sonar, and they have mastered the technology. Their captain for a third straight season is Gage’s dad, Josh Dowers.
Last season’s big highlight
A glaring difference between the teammates is Dowers fished tournaments before high school on the Junior Southwest Bassmasters circuit, while Whittington first got into the tournament scene as a high school freshman.
Whittington, 17, and Dowers, 16, both agree the highlight of their 2024-25 season was the 2025 LHSBN State Championship the first week of May at Lake D’Arbonne. It originally was scheduled to be held on the Ouachita River but a month of flood-producing heavy rain prompted officials to move it to the lake in Farmerville.
They finished third with 25.36 pounds thanks to a second-day limit weighing 14.56 pounds on the digital scale.
Dowers said he and Whittington prefished two days, found a few fish but didn’t catch a bass there Day 1, so they fished even harder elsewhere to put 10.8 pounds in the boat and finish the day in 12th place.
“We knew what we were doing the first day wasn’t working. We couldn’t figure them out. We had to make a change,” Whittington said, noting on the second day they targeted a backwater area.
“I randomly started throwing a frog and caught two 4-pounders. Everything just started happening,” he said, adding Dowers also started putting them in the boat on a Fluke.
Toledo Bend
Dowers started fishing for bass when he was around 7. It’s little wonder his favorite February body of water is Toledo Bend, where he fished a lot with his dad and his grandfather, Ike Dowers. He was out on the lake with them before he could walk, he said.
He’s looking forward to fishing it in the LHSBN spring season opener in February. He said it’s prime time to throw a crawfish-colored Rat-L-Trap over any grass in 10- to 15-foot depths.
“It’s kind of a pre-spawn type pattern,” Dowers said, noting he also fishes grass with a watermelon/red magic or shad-colored Fluke in Six Mile or Housen.
Whittington, who also started bassin’ at a young age with his dad, Blake Whittington, and grandfather, Troy Whittington, mostly on the Sabine River and Calcasieu River, said his favorite place to fish in February is Toledo Bend. He’s partial to sandy flats in the back of McGee’s.
“I like throwing my Carolina rig out there, mostly something slow. My preferred depth is like 6-foot of water,” Whittington said, adding he also favors a watermelon/red Zoom Speed Craw with the tip dipped in chartreuse dye.
With a senior year still ahead of them, the fishing partners have started to think about the future. Dowers was unsure if he’d fish collegiately, but in the same breath said he’d love to fish at LSU-Shreveport.
“But I’m not a big fan of going to college. I’d rather start working and fish for fun,” he said, noting if he got the chance he’d fish some major circuit(s).
“I would love to fish for college if I had a scholarship to go,” Whittington said. “And I’d like to fish MLF, like the Toyota Series.”
