“We head to Alabama on the 29th for my nationals tournament because I won the state (tournament) for California here,” says the 10 year angler, who has won over 8 tournaments in his 3 years of competitive bass fishing. “You start early in the morning, and you fish until the time is over, and you keep catching as many fish as you can. After you get five, you throw your smallest one so you can try and catch a bigger one, and you just keep doing that.”

The young Lakeside native went from learning to fish at 5 years old from his father, to fishing competitively in lakes all over California. But fishing wasn’t always his go to passion. Baseball came first.

“I was on the freshman team, it was pretty cool. I thought I would’ve won defensive player of the year, but offensive is cool too.” While baseball was his first true love, now he’s not sure if he could pick one over the other. “Baseball’s been my sport most of my life, and fishing has been my hobby, but fishing is starting to become more of a sport, so I can’t really choose. Both!”

Larry will have to beat out 35 of the 40 competitors in order to advance to the second round of the Junior World Championships August 5-6.