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The Family That Fishes Together: The Harrisons’ ABT Story

The Family That Fishes Together: The Harrisons’ ABT Story

The Alabama Bass Trail has built its reputation on cultivating the best teams in bass fishing, comprised of hard-nosed competitors who sharpen each other season after season. For Zack and Kristin Harrison, that growth has gone beyond points and payouts. What started as two kids fishing Lee County Lake has become a marriage, a partnership, and now a family fully woven into the sport. Their son Huck has joined the ABT family too, already cashing his first check and showing the same fire his parents carry to every weigh-in. Together, the Harrisons are proving you can chase trophies, raise the next generation of anglers, and still keep fishing the way it began—simple, shallow, and with heart.

They do not call it fun as much as they call it serious. “Everybody says it’s just for fun,” Zack says. “We go out there like it’s serious business. To us, this is work.” Still, something deeper connects them to their roots—a joy that surfaces especially when a frog gets freight-trained in a foot of water. The fun is in the doing. The fun is in the catching. That same commitment began years before, on Lee County Lake, and would shape the rest of their journey.

They have been doing this together for nearly a quarter of a century; 24 years side by side, 15 of those years married. The story starts on the bank of Lee County Lake. Zack and his brother, Josh, grew up there—jon boats, red-clay shorelines, and more than a few big ones. As boys, they entered pot tournaments and often beat men twice their age. Kristin was involved in those adventures early, and about fifteen years ago, a boat appeared in the driveway. “That’s when it shifted from bank to boat,” Kristin says, “and the tournaments grew from local to bigger water.”

Zack fished his first Alabama Bass Trail season with Josh in 2018—an opportunity to fish a level up. They soon realized their styles were different. The ABT’s couples division opened a new lane, and Zack turned to Kristin: “You want in?” She shrugged that calm shrug. “I might catch a fish,” she told him. Six or seven seasons later, might has turned into will, and often when it matters most.

They are outliers in a LiveScope world. No forward-facing. No 360. Side imaging stays quiet while Zack keeps his eyes fixed on the next stretch of bank that “looks like this.” He doesn’t mean a waypoint; he means a type and the right angle of shade, a seam of pea gravel, a sharp grass edge. “Fish are creatures of habit, just like people,” he says. “Same places, same time, same thing. We pull up, throw the bait that belongs there, and let ’em show themselves. That’s it.”

Kristin smiles. Her way is slower, wired to feel. He’s topwater chaos with a frog in hand. She’s “a big worm on a half-ounce shaky head,” crawling the bottom. Lately, she’s kept the frog in play more often, and more than once this season, it’s produced five-plus-pound fish. Kristin plays the long game during the day. She keeps snacks stashed, “a breakfast bite, a quick lunch,”and reads Zack’s tempo. If there’s 15 to 18 pounds in the livewell and the bite is still alive, there’s no break for him, just Red Bull, water, and keep moving. She’ll thread her worm through seams behind his frog, covering what he skips. They are opposites that finish each other’s coverage. That’s the blueprint with no detours. “We ain’t out there scoping and hoping,” Zack says. “We’re playing a field game with our key bait on the line, looking for what we want to see. Shallow. Always shallow.”

This past season, one more family member joined the ABT story. Josh is back with Huck, Zack, and Kristin’s son, who can “skip a dock as good as a grown man.” Huck learned to fish on Lee County Lake, caught the bug early, and now he’s cashing checks of his own: 31st at Lake Eufaula with Josh, good for his first ABT payday. He’s already signed up for next year with Josh and is eyeing his school’s fishing team after the coach heard he fishes the ABT. Zack wonders aloud if he’ll have to captain a high-school boat soon, hands in his hoodie, perfectly happy not to cast if it means watching his kid go to work. “If he’s catching the same fish that Kristin and I catch, even better.”

Zack and Kristin have been fishing in weeknight tournaments and have continued to have steady results and cash checks. Now their sights lock on the ABT Championship at Wheeler Lake. They qualified by finishing 7th in points in the South Division, comfortably inside the top-75 cut and, more importantly to them, in on merit and not just via the couples division. That AOY finish also punched their ticket to the Bassmaster Team Championship at Lake Hartwell, S.C., with a shot at the Bassmaster Classic.

They’ll tell you they’ve never “done really good” in an ABT Championship yet. Championships are fickle: two days, two moods of a lake. Zack still recalls a friend who weighed 21 on Day 1 at Guntersville and eight on Day 2. You can lose it on Day 1. You can make up ground, too. The plan stays the plan: trust shallow, trust the frog, trust the stretch. Wheeler is new-ish, Hartwell newer still. They don’t travel far to practice, but they study patterns, seasonal windows, and the places where big ones live that time of year. “If we get the five right bites,” Zack says, “we’re gonna do really well. A lot of people won’t even be looking for a frog bite.”

The numbers are clean: 24 years together, 15 married, first boat about fifteen years ago, and seasons spent learning how to be a true team on big water. But the truth of the Harrisons isn’t in the arithmetic; it’s in the cadence. Same lakes, same banks, same baits, refined rather than reinvented. They’ve built a system that works, and they lean into it wherever they go.

Ask Kristin what she remembers from those early tournaments, and she laughs, “not the details like he does.” Ask Zack and he remembers everything: the banks, the baits, the exact places, the feel when the line jumps. Ask Huck, and you hear a young angler already reading water and pattern, building on what came before. Together, they’re a fishing memory you can trust: she keeps the tempo human; he keeps the hunt relentless; Huck carries the story forward.

They may never be the newest rig on a graph-lit ledge. But if the wind rips a little, if the clouds slide over, if the bank is lit just right, a family will appear where the water is thin, and the game is honest. A frog will arc, a worm will settle, a dock will get skipped, and somewhere tight to the bank, a grown bass will take the bait. They will lean in, set the hook, and swing another big one in the boat.

For Zack and Kristin, the story has always been about more than standings or payouts. It’s about building a rhythm together, proving that old-school instincts still win, and now, watching Huck carve out his own place in the ABT family. When he steps on the front deck, rod in hand, he carries their story forward—one cast, one bite, one tournament at a time.