HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — Rein Golubjatnikov, 14, of the Rochester Jr. Bassmasters in New York set the hook like he would any other time he gets a bite from a bass. He glimpsed the fish preparing to jump out of the water and thought little of it. After all, Golubjatnikov didn’t really care whether he caught the bass because he was practice-fishing for the Bassmaster Junior National Championship.
What ensued, though, he may never forget: A behemoth bass thrashed at the boat and made a wake of its own with a simple headshake.
Golubjatnikov’s partner, Matthew Pitcher, netted the fish, which not only proved to be the young angler’s personal best bass, it pushed the Tennessee state record of 15.2 pounds. The beast weighed 14 pounds, 2 ounces on their scale, after multiple tests to confirm it, and it was accepted as the Carroll County 1,000-Acre Recreational Lake record. If they didn’t before, the New Yorkers now have a soft spot in their heart for Huntingdon, Tennessee.
“It was a fish of a lifetime for me,” Rein said. “It was so awesome! I never expected to catch one that big, even though I had caught my biggest fish here last year.”
Golubjatnikov placed second in the 2017 Bassmaster Junior Championship while fishing solo. He led the event going into the final day, but eventually came up just shy of the championship title. Last year, he boated two bass that beat his personal best weights in succession, an 8-pounder and then a 9-pounder.
Golubjatnikov and Pitcher could have used the 14-pounder when competition began Tuesday. They managed five bass weighing a total of 10 pounds, which places them in second, just 3 ounces behind the team of Jeremy Monda and Will Boyd of the Quincy Bassmasters in Florida. Pitcher caught the team’s biggest bass, a 5-1 largemouth.
“We decided to practice an area similar to the one that produced for Rein last year,” said Ken Golubjatnikov, Rein’s father and boat captain. “That was in June, so the fish were in a different pattern than this year’s conditions. The same spot produced for us, at least in practice this year.”
The magic lure was an “old school” Berkley Power Worm that is no longer in production. Long a fan of the bait, Ken bought bundles of 100-packs back in the 1990s while competing on grass roots tournament trails.
Rein has used the worm selection and color choice to great success, and they have given him increasing confidence in fishing offshore, especially in the South. His Humminbird 360 sonar system also played a role in the catch of a lifetime as they saw the fish on the graph and made a cast towards it.
“You often see big markings in front of the boat or below and you cast to them even if you’re unsure whether they’re fish,” Ken said. “This bass came moments after they caught a pound-and-a-half fish.”
The third aspect that made the catch possible was a custom map of Carroll County’s 1,000-acre Recreational Lake. The map, created by Jason Edmonds, is a handmade map created from side imaging screenshots that are stitched together to show the bottom of the lake with an extremely high level of detail.
“The maps, which were publicly available online have been used by a few teams this week,” Ken said. “It’s very impressive the time spent to create maps from scratch. I’ve tried to do my own in New York, but Jason is an artist and is on another level. It’s not like we have spots to ourselves, everyone is fishing the good stuff, but finding a spot on the spot is the deal.”
“The Bassmaster Junior Championship has helped me become a better angler,” Rein said. “We didn’t fish like this in New York before participating in these events. Now we can take techniques and styles back home and catch fish using them. We are only 14 years old, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned in the few times we’ve competed here.”
Fun for this duo is sitting in a hotel room in Tennessee as they pour over maps and learn a little bit more about bass fishing each and every day. It’s obviously paying dividends in the short term, but the long-term learning will be even more valuable for this team.
