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Wlaf1450Mac Fritts and Cayden Wright are back on the water this weekend competing at Chickamauga Lake
By Charlotte Underwood
JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- Campbell County Cougars Mac Fritts and Cayden Wright of the CCHS Fishing Team won the TN Bass Federation Tournament last weekend at Melton Hill. The boys won with a weight of 14.05 pounds. There were 30 boats in total that participated in the tournament.
The portion of Melton Hill Lake where they competed is located in Loudon County. According to CCHS Fishing Coach Gabe Keen, “Melton Hill is typically a tough lake.”
“The boys put their time in on the water and figured out a way to catch five good ones. As always, I’m proud of them and their dedication,” Keen said. He has been the fishing coach at CCHS for 13 years.
Fritts is a senior at CCHS and Wright is a CCHS sophomore from Jacksboro, but the pair said fishing was something they grew up doing and loving from a young age.
Wright said he loves fishing and being out fishing on the different lakes.
“Fishing has always been a thing I loved; it felt really great to win and I’m thankful to have a great teammate like Mac to fish with also,” Wright said. He said that even though he had only been competitive fishing for the past two years, he has always loved fishing since his papaw David Hatfield got him into it when he was young.
Fritts, who is from Caryville, practically lives on the water; in fact, when WLAF called him to do this interview, you could hear the unmistakable sounds of a boat on the water and a fishing rod casting and landing.
“Yeah, I’m fishing right now,” Fritts admitted, with a laugh. In fact, he’s been fishing since he was “about three years old” and has fished school tournaments since he was in third grade.
It was his dad Robert that got him into fishing as a youngster.
“My dad took me fishing for the first time when I was little, and I was hooked,” Fritts said.
Fritts also said he is planning on attending college on fishing scholarships, and his choice field of study will be business finance. Schools he is looking at include Carson Newman, Tennessee Wesleyan University and the University Montevallo in Alabama. He plans to visit Montevallo soon to help him with his decision.
As far as his recent win at the tournament on Melton Hill Lake, he said it “felt great,” especially being able to go and practice and then catch them the same way during the tournament as they had at practice.”
“As easy as that sounds, it’s really not, fish change with the weather and they can just change their mind sometimes, in practice, we would get some big bites, but you can’t count on those, but luckily we got two big bites on tournament day and that’s what helped us to win,” Fritts said.
He said he and his teammate had “practice all week for the tournament, scoping out the lake.” Anglers use technology called “LiveScope” which is sonar technology that allows anglers to see images of fish, structure, and their lure in motion under and around the boat.
“We patterned them and we found some that we thought we might have a chance to win if we came back Saturday and they were still like that, and we came back and every good bite we had, we got in,” Fritts said.
His biggest fish was a 3.98 pound largemouth bass, while Wright’s biggest catch of the day was a 3.21 small mouth bass.
The CCHS fishing team of Fritts and Wright will compete again this Saturday, February 21, on Chickamauga Lake at Hixson.
Good luck Boys from WLAF! (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-02/17/2026-6AM)