Travis Mewborn and Tanner Beaman Win 2 Day Championship!

The Eastern NC Bass Challenge held its final tournament of 2023 this past weekend on the Roanoke River. This was our 2 Day Championship event that featured 71 teams battling for over $12,000 in prizes! Many anglers had great success this weekend as multiple big bags of bass were weighed in on Saturday and Sunday. But the biggest bag of the tournament went to the eventual winners of the tournament, Travis Mewborn and Tanner Beaman.

Travis and Tanner brought a giant bag of bass to the scales Saturday afternoon. They weighed in 26.97 pounds of bass and took a big lead after the 1st day of the tournament. After the dust settled Sunday afternoon, Travis and Tanner were able to hold onto their lead with a 2-day total weight of 36.51 pounds. They were awarded our 1st-place prize of $4,000!

After the tournament, we spoke with Tanner Beaman about their big weekend: “We knew we had been on some good fish but every day is a new day with different conditions on the Roanoke. We knew we needed a few big bites. Saturday morning we did just that. We decided to go upriver and flip brush piles that we knew held good fish and lucky for us the fish were there.”

Beaman went on to say, “We did not catch many fish but the bites we got were the fish we were looking for. Day 2 was another story. Although it was a tough day, we were blessed and managed to pull through and bring just enough to the scales to hold onto 1st place.“

Travis and Tanner have competed with the Eastern NC Bass Challenge for years now but this is their 1st victory. They won our 1st Place prize of $4,000 and 2 commemorative trophies.

Additional Awards and Prizes

This event featured several different payouts and rewards for our anglers. Among the rewards were our Kolby Jones Big Bass Award and our Kolby Jones Day 2 Big Bag! Both of these awards gave anglers an additional $1,000 cash prize and also helped us forever remember Kolby Jones who passed away just 1 year ago.

Our Kolby Jones Tournament Big Bass prize was awarded to Chase Crocker and Tyler Little. They weighed in a 7.33-pound bass on Saturday and were awarded a $1,000 cash prize and our tournament’s largest trophy, the Kolby Jones Big Bass Award.

On Sunday we also awarded our Kolby Jones Day 2 Big Bag prize. We wanted to give all anglers a reason to participate with us on Sunday even if they didn’t have a great day on Saturday. So in 2023, we established our Kolby Jones Day 2 Big Bag. This $1,000 prize was awarded to the team who weighed in the biggest bag on Day 2 of the event.

This prize was awarded to Charlie Allen and Lee Mitchell. After weighing in 14.59 pounds on Day 1 of the event, Charle and Lee dropped 17.24 pounds on Day 2 and won our Day 2 Big Bass Prize of $1,000. In addition to winning this prize, their big bag on Day 2 helped them move up the leaderboard on the 2nd day and finish 2nd in this event. Charlie and Lee won our $1,600 2nd place prize and the $1,000 Day 2 Big Bag prize which made their total winnings $2,600! After the tournament, Charlie and Lee stated their motor went down just after blast off and they were limited to trolling motor usage only on the 2nd day. They were forced to fish close to the launch ramp but obviously made the best out of a bad situation by moving from 7th to 2nd on the second day of the tournament.

The Kolby Jones Foundation

The Kolby Jones Foundation donated $2,000 to the anglers of this tournament. All of these funds were paid straight out to our anglers with the sole purpose of remembering Kolby and the outstanding angler, friend, son, and young man that he was. I want to personally thank Keven Jones and the Kolby Jones Foundation for allowing us to honor Kolby in this tournament. We look forward to continuing this tradition for years to come.

Full Tournament Results

The Bass Challenge paid cash prizes to our top 9 teams in this event. It took 26.66  pounds to finish inside the Bass Challenge money line. Special thanks to Zeb West for sponsoring the 9th place payout of $100! 

* Anglers inside the top 10 are eligible for the White River Marine Contingency Bonus if they meet the boat requirements. 

POS		TEAM	TOTAL	FISH	BF	DAY 1	FISH	BF	DAY 2
1		Travis Mewborn Tanner Beaman	36.51	5	6.28	26.97	5	0	9.54
2		Charlie Allen Lee Mitchell	31.83	5	5.56	14.59	5	5.7	17.24
3		Wayne Harris Larry Thomas	30.75	5	5.48	15.73	5	0	15.02
4		Kevin Ross Michael Williams	30.46	5	0	13.64	5	6.51	16.82
5		Brian Cooper RT Johnson	28.81	5	0	12.44	5	0	16.37
6		Michael Chlomoudis Powell Kemp	27.84	5	0	11.72	5	0	16.12
7		Paul King Bradley Stain	26.95	5	5.28	12.45	5	0	14.5
8		Donald Luther Mike Kannan	26.77	5	0	10.9	5	4.93	15.87
9		Adam Harris Tim Harris	26.66	5	0	13.04	5	0	13.62
10		Kevin Jones Tyler Jones	26.31	5	0	11.62	5	0	14.69
11		Ricky Foss George Long	25.74	5	0	14.17	5	0	11.57
12		Brian Stalls Clark Harrington	25.51	5	5.8	17.8	5	0	7.71
13		Houston Cash Chase Davis	24.75	5	0	15.17	5	0	9.58
14		Wayne Stallings Justin Everett	24.63	5	0	13.56	4	0	11.07
15		Wayne Hoskins Chris Mitchell	24.47	5	5.35	15.09	4	0	9.38
16		Jason Pittman Braxton Bridgers	24.24	5	0	11.37	5	0	12.87
17		Adam Baldwin Jason Tripp	23.58	5	0	12.27	5	0	11.31
18		Mike Henson Jeff Stoop	23.21	4	0	7.94	5	0	15.27
19		Brad Hauser David Swain	22.81	5	0	11.83	5	0	10.98
20		Holden Northcott Austin Hughes	22.68	5	0	12.16	5	0	10.52
21		Brock Rouse Sammy Barrow	22.31	4	0	7.92	5	0	14.39
22		Matthew Swain JA Williford	22.27	5	0	13.18	4	0	9.09
23		Brad Duckworth Scott Shrewsbury	21.94	5	0	10.62	5	0	11.32
24		Dennis Boykin Jimmy Hipkiss	21.13	5	0	10.92	5	0	10.21
25		Chase Crocker Tyler Little	20.89	5	7.33	16.47	1	0	4.42
26		Justin Hof Justin Peaden	20.85	5	0	9.11	5	0	11.74
27		Luke Edwards Andrew Grant	20.43	5	0	12.27	5	0	8.16
28		Jody Wynn Troy Modlin	19.48	5	0	13.74	3	0	5.74
29		Craig Goess Matthew Oakley	17.37	5	0	12.3	2	0	5.07
30		Mike Cathcart Doug White	16.83	5	0	9.7	2	0	7.13
31		Brandon Hendricks Jon Williams	16.76	5	0	11.8	2	0	4.96
32		Randy Broughman Chris Ricks	16.58	5	0	11.28	4	0	5.3
33		Ryan Mesimer Fitz Parks	14.99	4	0	7.12	3	0	7.87
34		Parker Mills /	14.76	5	0	9.03	1	5.73	5.73
35		Lee Jones Joseph Giampa	13.03	5	0	6.53	4	0	6.5
36		Tim Jacobs Brandon Parson	12.77	4	0	8.29	3	0	4.48
37		Norman Mullinax Mike Lanier	12.06	5	5.13	12.06	0	0	0
38		Ronnie Carlson John Fowler	11.76	5	0	11.76	0	0	0
39		Shane Craft Matt Harrell	10.11	5	0	10.11	0	0	0
40		Roger Thomas Dylan Thomas	9.82	3	3.87	8.09	1	0	1.73
41		Brian Haddock James Ormond	9.63	5	0	9.63	0	0	0
42		Shawn Dunlap Ken Kipler	9.54	5	0	9.54	0	0	0
43		Cody Barnes Will Mckeel	9.46	4	0	9.46	0	0	0
44		Tony Coley Justin Coley	9.18	4	0	9.18	0	0	0
45		Josh Brown Kyle Smith	8.57	5	0	8.57	0	0	0
46		Jeremy Miller Bubba Barnett	8.31	5	0	8.31	0	0	0
47		JT Denton Shane Robbins	8.03	5	0	8.03	0	0	0
48		Jason Parker David Freeman	7.25	5	0	7.25	0	0	0
49		Ricky Britt Jerry Hardy	7.1	4	0	7.1	0	0	0
50		Eugene Foushee Brandon Johnson	6.85	5	0	6.85	0	0	0
51		Seth Barnes Denny Moore	6.78	4	0	6.78	0	0	0
52		Jim Dick Greg Dick	6.33	3	0	6.33	0	0	0
53		Tim Brasch Bob Monroe	5.82	4	0	5.82	0	0	0
54		Keven Jones Jon Mitchell	5.28	1	1.69	1.69	1	3.59	3.59
55		Ricky Mize Chris Turner	4.55	2	0	4.55	0	0	0
56		Ryan Harris Davis Jones	4.01	2	0	4.01	0	0	0
57		Greg Milligan /	3.81	2	0	3.81	0	0	0
58		John Brookshire Frank Dillahunt	2.84	1	0	2.84	0	0	0
59		Joseph Jernigan /	2.6	1	0	2.6	0	0	0
60		Clayton Boyette Allen Eure	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Bruce Dail, Jr Bruce Dail III	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Tracy King David Price	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Mike Askew Stacey Light	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Phillip Medford Hunter Medford	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Dean Thompson Steve Vann	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Brian Williams Michael Ore	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Rob Ramsey Danny Hammons	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Joseph Cusimano Michael Lukkes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Zeb West Jay Haggard	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Mike Stephens Kasey Espinoza	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
60		Walt Goff Eric Murphy	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

here

Tournament Pictures