Two Teens Are First Females to Win State Fishing Title

In their first high school bass fishing tournament of the year, eighth-grader Alexis Virgillito and freshman Taylor Bacot didn’t catch a single fish. Weeks later, at Louisiana’s state tournament on Caddo Lake in Shreveport, they set a goal of bringing at least one fish to the weigh-in. Instead, the girls reeled in five keepers within the first 30 minutes of the tournament and weighed in a total 30.3 pounds (with a five-bass limit), becoming the first female duo to ever win a high school state fishing tournament in any state.

“They zeroed at Toledo Bend, which is the very first tournament of the year,” Alexis’s dad Brad Virgillito told Southern Living. “We set a goal for Caddo, for the state championship, to just bring a fish across the scales and not zero.”

Both girls started fishing at a young age and are seasoned anglers. They were in a slump going into the tournament, but at state, they caught five fish totaling 25 pounds within the first…