ADRIAN COLLEGE WINS YETI FLW COLLEGE FISHING TOURNAMENT AT LAKE CHAUTAUQUA PRESENTED BY BASS PRO SHOPS
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CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. (July 24, 2017) – The Adrian College duo of Jarrett Martin and Zachary Graham, both of Gallipolis, Ohio, won the YETI FLW College Fishing Northern Conference tournament at Lake Chautauqua presented by Bass Pro Shops Saturday with a five-bass limit weighing 16 pounds, 3 ounces. The victory earned the Adrian bass club $2,000 and the team will now advance to compete at the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
“We were fishing on the north end of the lake,” said Graham, a sophomore, double majoring in environmental studies and geology. “We found a stretch of bank with no docks with a long rocky flat. About 40 yards off of the bank the rock would meet the grass, and we just worked the grassline all day long.”
“It was really one of the only green grassy areas that we were able to find,” said Martin, a senior majoring in business administration. “The lake has been sprayed recently, and there was quite a bit of brown, dead grass. But the fish were in the green stuff.”
“Jarrett was throwing a (Rebel) Pop-R off of the front all day and I was throwing a fluke off of the back,” Graham said. “We doubled up at least seven times.”
The duo estimated they caught around 20 keepers throughout the day – around 13 smallmouth and seven largemouth. Their five-bass limit that they brought to the weigh-in scale consisted of two smallmouth and three largemouth.
“I think the key for us was the cloud cover,” Martin said. “If it would have been sunny, the fish would have been hiding in the shade. But, the way the clouds were, the bass were in the mood to eat all day and were extremely active.”
“I think the Pop-R was the key,” Graham added. “We have a lot of confidence in that bait and it produced the two biggest fish of the day for us.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2018 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Adrian College – Jarrett Martin and Zachary Graham, both of Gallipolis, Ohio, five bass, 16-3, $2,400
2nd: Lake Superior State University – Jake Dorony, South Lyon, Mich., and Hunter Scharphorn, Grand Haven, Mich., five bass, 15-6, $1,000
3rd: Adrian College – Nicholas Czajka, Brighton, Mich., and Jack Hippe III, Davison, Mich., five bass, 15-3, $700
4th: Youngstown State University – Jonathan Creed, Niles, Ohio, and Mike Soots, McDonald, Ohio, five bass, 14-13, $500
5th: James Madison University – Blake Miles, Chesterfield, Va., and Jack Goodwyn, Powhatan, Va., five bass, 14-12, $500
6th: Michigan State University – Tyler Andrews, Charlotte, Mich., and Danny Sprague, Hastings, Mich., five bass, 14-8
7th: Pennsylvania State University – Derek Horner, Port Matilda, Pa., and Maurice Hudson, Broomall, Pa., five bass, 14-4
8th: Kutztown University of Pennsylvania – Joe Tini, Archibald, Pa., and Corey Bechtel, Allentown, Pa., five bass, 14-1
9th: Pennsylvania State University – Chris Trianosky, Phoenixville, Pa., and Lou Mocniak, Washington, Pa., five bass, 13-14
10th: West Virginia University – Michael Shughart, Shippensburg, Pa., and Branden Newcome, Ellamore, W.Va., five bass, 13-4
Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.
This YETI FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event at Lake Chautauqua was the second regular-season qualifying tournament for Northern Conference anglers in 2017. The next YETI FLW College Fishing event will be the Northern Conference regular-season finale, scheduled for Sept. 9 on Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio.
YETI FLW College Fishing teams compete in three regular-season qualifying tournaments in one of five conferences – Central, Northern, Southern, Southeastern and Western. The top ten teams from each division’s three regular-season tournaments, along with an additional qualifier for every 10 teams over 100 that compete, along with the top 20 teams from the annual YETI FLW College Fishing Open advance to the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
College Fishing is free to enter. All participants must be registered, full-time students at a college, university or community college and members of a college fishing club that is recognized by their school.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow College Fishing on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWFishing. Visit FLWFishing.com to sign up or to start a club at your school.