The Eastern Kentucky University team of Ethan Snyder of Flaherty, Kentucky, and Shaw Owens of Barboursville, Kentucky, won the FLW College Fishing Central Conference event on Kentucky Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 21 pounds, 5 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the FLW College Fishing Central Conference Championship tournament.
“Winning a tournament of this caliber is a big accomplishment for our program,” said Snyder, a recent graduate who received a degree in agronomy.
“We spent a lot of hours preparing for this weekend and carved out a good strategy,” said Owens, a junior majoring in political science. “We wanted to fish drops all day and it ended up working well for us.”
The duo said they went to their key areas on the north end of the lake where they were able to catch a 4- and a 2½-pounder by 7:30 a.m.
“We targeted the breaks and drops in 10 to 20 foot depths,” said Snyder. “We preferred spots that we had found in practice where there were structural irregularities.”
“We each used a ¾-ounce green-pumpkin Strike King football-head jig rigged with a green-pumpkin Strike King Rage Craw to catch our fish,” said Owens. “We also caught a few keepers on a custom swimbait.”
Snyder said that even though the bite slowed down in the afternoon, their morning catches were enough to push them to the top of the leaderboard.
“We hit spots that a lot of people overlooked,” said Snyder. “We had our routes carefully planned out and fired up the right schools at the right time.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Central Conference Championship tournament on Carlyle Lake are:
1st: Eastern Kentucky University – Shaw Owens, Barboursville, Ky., and Ethan Snyder, Flaherty, Ky., five bass, 21-5, $2,000 Club Scholarship
2nd: Western Kentucky University – Jacob Hopkins and Justin Hopkins, both of Lewisville, Ky., five bass, 20-14, $1,000 Club Scholarship
3rd: Indiana University – Chase Banister, Columbus, Ind., and Tyler Trout, Brazil, Ind., five bass, 20-8, $500 Club Scholarship
4th: Campbellsville University – Austin Moore, Smiths Grove, Ky., and Cameron Brooks, Greenville, Ky., five bass, 19-1, $500 Club Scholarship
5th: University of Evansville – Nick Uebelhor and Levi Hulsman, both of Jasper, Ind., five bass, 17-1, $500 Club Scholarship
6th: Murray State University – Seth Brock, Cedar Hill, Tenn., and Lance Freeman, Eddyville, Ky., five bass, 16-13
7th: Northern Kentucky University – Brandon Houston, Burlington, Ky., and Brandon Knapmeyer, Union, Ky., five bass, 15-2
8th: Murray State University – Daniel Young and Boris Moskoff, both of Murray, Ky., five bass, 14-13
9th: Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne – Parker Watts and Joseph Sittler, both of Fort Wayne, Ind., five bass, 14-8
10th: Murray State University – Cody Sieben and Andrew Mohlenbrock, both of Murray, Ky., five bass, 11-2
11th: Southern Illinois University – Steve Seiler, Mokena, Ill., and Kyle Wagner, Waterloo, Ill., four bass, 11-2
12th: Illinois State University – Bryce Wegman and Carlos Thomas, both of Normal, Ill., four bass, 11-1
13th: Iowa State University – Tanner Bock, Ames, Iowa, and Ben McCord, Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, five bass, 9-10
14th: University of Illinois – Charlie Sterrett, Naperville, Ill., and Thomas Platt, Chicago, Ill., four bass, 9-3
15th: Campbellsville University – Mason Sapp, Campbellsville, Ky., and Dakota Cantrell, Monteagle, Tenn., three bass, 8-6
This FLW College Fishing Central Conference tournament was hosted by the Kentucky Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau and was the second regular-season qualifying tournament. The next event for Central Conference anglers is a regular-season event scheduled for July 25 on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
FLW College Fishing teams compete in qualifying tournaments in one of five conferences – Central, Northern, Southern, Southeastern and Western. The top fifteen teams from each regular-season tournament will qualify for one of five Conference Championship tournaments. The top ten teams from each of the five Conference Championship tournaments will advance to the 2016 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 fishing club recognized by their college or university.
ABOUT FLW
FLW is the industry’s premier tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money nationwide in 2015 over the course of 240 tournaments across five tournament circuits, four of which provide an avenue to the sport’s richest payday and most coveted championship trophy – the Forrest Wood Cup. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show and is broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world.
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
