Two Auburn students win $1 million from U.S. Open National Bass Fishing Amateur Championship
AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn University students, Logan Parks (senior) and Tucker Smith (sophomore) won the $1 million first-place prize in the Bass Pro Shops U.S. Open National Bass Fishing Amateur Team Championships. For fifty years, Bass Pro Shops have been holding the tournament to raise money and awareness for conservation.
When asked about how they began this journey, Tucker (who won three Bassmaster national titles at Briarwood High School) said that it began with his dad asking if they wanted to try to qualify for the tournament. Being named the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Team of the Year, Logan and Tucker were no strangers to the hard work that it would take to qualify. After finishing 13th out of 250 at the last qualifier available at Lake Bull Shoals in Arkansas, they prepared for the Championship.
The three-day event was held at Table Rock Lake in Ridgedale, Missouri. The weight of each team’s top five fish of day one and two were combined to weed the field down to fifty teams. On day three, they yet again set out to fish the 45,000 acre lake. While casting their lures, they looked over to see birds diving in the water. It was there that they would find their winning catch. Tucker and Logan humbly said that God had blessed them with their find.
Logan and Tucker split the prize money and both went home with a 2022 Toyota Tundra CrewMax truck and Nitro Z21 bass boat for their efforts. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Logan, “We woke up this morning thinking it was a dream, but then we looked at our phones and realized it wasn’t. We’re just blown away.”
Although finishing their degrees (Logan in marketing and Tucker in supply chain management and information systems management), both anglers would like to fish professionally one day.
“It’s been the goal since day one, and I was already planning on doing it, but was really struggling to figure out how I was going to do it monetarily. This tournament really, really helps boost my confidence that, yes, I can fish professionally, do well and win, but also it helps knowing I’m pretty much set for the next few years,” Logan said.
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