I’d be lying to say I wasn’t excited about this. Finally, I got to crown two new Cup champions and continue on a tradition for the Marshall Fishing Team.

I got to catch up with James Pack who just claimed the Cup and got to talk about their day and how it all came together.

The Cup is a closed tournament that is held every year normally in the beginning weeks of November over on Summersville Lake. Only competitors that fished 3 out of 5 regular trail tournaments and finished top 45 in points qualified for the annual Cup this year.

James Pack and Bill Shelton did just that, they actually fished 4 out of the 5 regular tournaments and ended up finishing in an impressive 6th place in points in just 4 tournaments. Launch order for The Cup is determined by where you finish in points, James and Bill claim that finishing up 6th in points helped them claim the win.

“We lucked out in the points standings, we were 6th out of the gate,” James said. “We had a spot in mind and fortunately it was open.”

After arriving at their spot the duo quickly put together a limit and started looking for bigger fish.

“Call for the day for us was the Carolina rig and jig,” James said. “We had a limit in the boat fairly quick in the first few hours. Then just kept upgrading throughout the day to get to what we had.”

The champs would end up with a solid 8.38 bag in their best five which would be enough to claim The Cups and three thousand dollars to ride just a few minutes back down the road to home with. I’ve always been curious what The Cup Champions do with the Cups so I had to ask.

“Mine (The Cup) is sitting on the coffee table in the living room,” James said. “That away anyone who stops by can see it. Bill probably has his there on the end table beside his recliner.”

I might be a little bit bias because it is a trail that I grew, but to me, knowing those Cups are sitting on the coffee table in someone’s house means a ton to me. Makes it feel like what I’ve done has been worthy.

I also got to catch up with the runner-ups, Ken Bragg and Charlie Epperly who were just 0.53 away from sealing the deal and taking The Cups just down the road back home with them. While James and Bill got off to a quick start, Ken and Charlie found themselves off to a pretty rough start.

“The shallow bite for us was just dead in the morning,” Ken said. “We tried that for about an hour before we slowed down and went to a plastic bait and went deeper.”

The deep bite ended up being key for them, I actually got to catch up with them on the water around noon and they had only boated two fish.

“We caught a few and lost a few right off when we went deeper,” Ken said. “Then we got on one spot that had numerous fish on it and got our limit. Unfortunately, we never got to cull the one we needed rid of.”

Their day ended up landing them in second place yet again in a Marshall tournament there. They had finished second on Summersville back in 2019 when the Marshall team hosted a tournament there in September.

“Obviously you want to win, but we are pleased for second considering how we did,” Ken said.

To say I’m excited for 2022 would be an understatement. I’m going to soak in every tournament next year as it will be the my final year at Marshall and being apart of team that I’ve got to help grow. Every blast off and weigh-in I put on next year I’m going to take it all in and enjoy it and I hope everyone who participates next year will as well! While I might be closing the chapter next year, I look forward to opening up the next chapter for myself.