The Louisiana State University-Shreveport duo of Harrison Hopkins of Bossier City, and Ryan Antee, of Hosston, Louisiana, won the YETI FLW College Fishing Southern Conference tournament at the Red River presented by Bass Pro Shops Saturday with a five-bass limit weighing 11 pounds, 7 ounces. The victory earned the Shreveport bass club $2,000 and the team will now advance to compete at the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship, which will also be hosted on the Red River, May 30-June 2.
The duo said that they stayed in Pool No. 5 of the river, fishing the entire day within 100 to 200 yards of the launch site at the Red River South Marina in Bossier City.
“The Red River is basically our backyard,” said Hopkins, a sophomore majoring in business. “We fish there all the time. Practice was really key for us in this tournament. We found our fish on Wednesday and left them alone until the morning of the tournament. Luckily, they were still there.
“We started out throwing black buzzbaits in 3 to 4 feet of water through stump fields,” Hopkins continued. “We caught our biggest kicker bass in the morning, then once the sun came up the buzzbait bite shut down. We spent the rest of the day flipping stumps and laydowns.”
The Shreveport club said that their flipping bait of choice was a black and red-colored Texas-rigged Zoom Speed Craw.
“Even though we won, it was still a bit of a struggle,” Hopkins went on to say. “We lost a few fish that would have put us around 15 pounds, and we definitely didn’t think that 11½ pounds would be enough to win. I’m glad that we had the outcome that we did.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2018 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Louisiana State University-Shreveport – Harrison Hopkins, Bossier City, La., and Ryan Antee, Hosston, La., five bass, 11-7, $2,000
2nd: University of Texas-Tyler – James Shamburger and Cameron Bradbury, both of Tyler, Texas, five bass, 11-2, $1,000
3rd: Oklahoma State University – Bates Enmeier, Enid, Okla., and Dexter Flick, Stillwater, Okla., five bass, 11-1, $900
4th: Oklahoma State University – Kobe Payton, Pauls Valley, Okla., and Blaise Weimer, of Grapevine, Texas, five bass, 10-8, $500
5th: Texas A&M University – Connor Whisenant, The Woodlands, Texas, and Carter Henderson, Tyler, Texas, five bass, 10-0, $500
6th: Northeastern State University – Tyler Winn and Ethan Burris, both of Tahlequah, Okla., five bass, 10-0
7th: Louisiana Tech University – Scott McClellan, Leesville, La., and Adam Forester, Pineville, La., five bass, 9-14
8th: Northwestern State University – Hunter Malmay, Zwolle, La., and Robert Jones, Minden, La., five bass, 9-12
9th: University of Louisiana-Monroe – Koby Dortch, Clarks, La., and Hogan Beckley, Grayson, La., five bass, 9-6
10th: Sam Houston State University – Jackson Carrell, Anderson, Texas, and Kyle Pasket, Tomball, Texas, five bass, 9-4
This YETI FLW College Fishing Southern Conference event at the Red River was hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission and was the second of three regular-season qualifying tournament for Southern Conference anglers in 2017. The third and final YETI FLW College Fishing event for Southern Conference anglers is scheduled for Oct. 14 at Fort Gibson Lake in Wagoner, Oklahoma.
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 on the Red River, hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission & Red River Waterway Commission.
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.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2017 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW conducts more than 258 bass-fishing tournaments annually across the United States and sanctions tournaments in Canada, China, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros.
By: Joe Opager, Director of Public Relations
