A high school bass fishing team that once brought in “biggest bass of the tournament” on consecutive days at Toledo Bend looks ahead to fishing in college when the first semester starts at Northwestern State University.
Landon Watts of Independence and Josiah Shockley of Albany realize that college studies toward their respective degrees require time and effort. There’s another formidable course ahead of them if they want to succeed in the college bass fishing ranks.
The Albany High School graduates know their game sorely lacks understanding of forward facing sonar, the oft-controversial marine electronics that have taken the sport by storm in all levels of bass fishing. B.A.S.S. and Major League Fishing still allow it but it’s a no-go this year in the National Professional Bass Fishing League.
For better or worse, any success they enjoy hinges on increasing their knowledge from now on after both received the Dylan Kyle Poche Memorial Fishing Scholarship in July.
“We’re really stepping outside the box fishing bigger lakes and learning LiveScope,” Watts said. “It’s going to come down to how good we can learn it. I think if we can learn LiveScope we can compete during the summer months. When we need it the most I think we’ve got a shot.
“I think in the spring we can excel if we do our research right. It comes down to how good we can learn it. I don’t know how long it’ll take us to learn it but we will learn it.”
Setting goals
When asked about the challenges of fishing on the collegiate circuit, Shockley said he thinks it’s going to be a lot different … much harder competition.
“We’ve definitely got to learn LiveScope because we’re not too good at it,” he said. “If it’s shallow water fishing … we can handle that. If it gets out deep we might struggle a little bit but we can figure something out.”
Todd and Mia Shockley’s 18-year-old son is excited about the entire NSU Fishing Team’s potential in 2025-26.
“This team is going to be pretty good. Another dude who fishes with us (in Louisiana High School Bass Nation) is real good,” he said about fellow freshman Braxton Speyrer.
Watts and Shockley’s goal is to fish as many collegiate tournaments as possible as freshmen, knowing NSU’s coach urges team members to fish at least five events.
“We’ll probably try to fish eight or nine of them, really put our head down and fish as hard as we can,” Shockley said. “I would like to make it to nationals most of the years and I would like to win a couple tournaments. In high school we never won a tournament.”
History together
At Albany High School, the two-man team recorded seven Top 5 finishes and 10 Top 10 showings while qualifying to fish four state championships. They also earned trips to two national championship tournaments, including this year’s Bassmaster High School National Championship held July 31-Aug. 2 at Clarks Hill Lake in Georgia.
They plan to fish their first collegiate derby at Pickwick Lake in late September, where they’ll be fishing out of Watts’ 2019 Skeeter with a Yamaha 250hp Sho.
Watts, the son of Jeff and Ashey Watts, is the reason they are fishing together as freshmen at NSU. They’ve been fishing buddies since the seventh grade.
“They reached out to me first to come to the NSU Fishing Team but I wasn’t going to go without Josiah,” Watts said. “I made sure that he was taken care of as best they could.”
Shockley appreciates that effort.
“I actually wasn’t planning on doing college,” he said. “I was planning on doing trade school. That opportunity came up and I said, ‘All right, I’ll definitely do that.’”
Like Shockley, Watts plans to major in unified public safety with hopes of being a firefighter. Shockley’s emphasis will be on land surveying.
High school highlight
The highlight of their high school bass fishing career was in March 2023 at Toledo Bend, where Shockley weighed a 10.36-pound bass in a Louisiana High School Bass Nation divisional tournament. Watts followed up the next day with a 7.60-pounder on a chartreuse/white Chatterbait from the same spot in Blue Lake in another LHSBN divisional tournament.
“We had a rollercoaster of emotions. We were pumped,” Watts said about catching the second bass from a grassy flat at the base of a lone tree.
“That was pretty awesome,” Shockley said. “The first day we went out, it was like 15 minutes before we went in. I just fan casted (¾-ounce chartreuse/white Chatterbait with a white Speed Craw). I felt a little thump. I said, ‘Oh, man, this is a big one.’”
It’s a toss-up on his favorite waters to fish in September. Usually, Shockley and Bruce Shockley, his paw paw, wet a line at Manchac, with most of their success on June bug/red Speed Worms at the cut throughs, or a floating jerkbait or spinnerbait under the bridge.
Watts, who owns WATTS Landscaping & Pressure Washing, also likes to fish during September with his paw paw, Johnny Robertson, along the East Pearl River, where he likes to catch bass on a June bug soft plastic creature bait on an outgoing tide.
