In the world of competitive bass fishing, comebacks are rare. Comebacks led by 11- and 12-year-olds? Practically unheard of. But in 2021, at the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Junior National Championship, two young anglers from West Virginia flipped the script — and made history.
Bo Hollen and Ari Clark first met at the boat ramp for the Bass Nation of West Virginia Junior State Championship in 2018 when they were only 8 years old. They finished second, which qualified them for Nationals where they finished 9th place overall. Big beginnings.
Bo (now 11) and Ari (now 12) showed up at Tennessee’s sprawling Carroll County 1,000 Acre Recreational Lake with big dreams in 2021. But after a tough first day, landing just four fish for 3.8 pounds, those dreams seemed to be slipping away.
“Day 2 was gonna be swinging for the fences,” Dustin Hollen, Bo’s dad, told Wired2fish. And swing they did.
On the second cast of the day, Bo broke the silence with a small keeper on a drop shot rig. It was a start — but no one could have predicted what happened next.
“Ari put his drop shot down and picked up a Carolina rig,” Dustin Hollen shared. “He launched it toward the middle of the lake… a few long drags, and the Denali rod loaded up as he set the hook!”
Then, the water exploded.
“As the fight began and the fish came up and jumped, an 8-pound bass had eaten his Strike King bait,” Dustin Hollen continued. “Bo netted the giant bass — and all of Tennessee probably heard our screams of cheer and emotion!”
After a quick photo op and retying the line, Ari cast again, and immediately landed another keeper. The boys were back in the game.
Knowing they had momentum — and a shot at redemption — Ari stayed with the Carolina rig. About an hour later, from the exact same spot, he hooked into another beast: a 5-pounder.
“Bo again netted the fish, and once again we screamed in joy!”
Ari would go on to land their fifth keeper and cull several more fish in the final hours. By weigh-in time, the boys had done the unthinkable — hauling in 16.3 pounds on Day 2, bringing their two-day total to 19.11 pounds.
And with that, Bo Hollen and Ari Clark were crowned the 2021 Bassmaster Junior National Champions, making Bo and Ari the youngest angler ever to win the title.
Their win wasn’t just dramatic, it was historic. Between 2019 and 2024, Bo and Ari would go on to compete in six consecutive Bassmaster Junior National Championships, but 2021 was the lightning-in-a-bottle moment that put them in the record books.
“Here is a picture of the bass they caught that day,” said their team proudly—because some moments in fishing deserve to be seen and believed.
