The Miami University of Ohio team of Chris Bulaw of Wheaton, Illinois, and Josh Prephan of Perrysburg, Ohio, won the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event on Indian Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 9 pounds, 12 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference Championship tournament.
“This is the first tournament we’ve competed in as a club so to come in and win is huge,” said Bulaw, a junior majoring in marketing. “We’re hoping this victory will help us secure the club’s future. We don’t even have jerseys yet.”
“I couldn’t be happier with how the day turned out,” said Prephan, a junior majoring in accounting. “The lake set up well and our pattern ended producing some good fish.
“After some solid prefishing yesterday we decided to focus on riprap along main-lake points – a strategy that was uniquely ours,” Prephan continued. “We didn’t share water with anyone besides a few locals here and there. We used a sexy shad-colored Strike King KVD 2.5 crankbait.”
“Around 8:30 a.m. we caught a 3½-pounder in some riprap,” said Bulaw. “That catch got us excited. We knew there weren’t too many of those in the lake.”
After catching a few more bass sporadically, the duo said they caught two more 2½-pounders around 11 a.m.
“Around that time the boat traffic picked up and spooked the fish, so we weren’t able to catch another one for the rest of the day,” said Prephan. “Luckily we had a heavy enough stringer to win.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Northern Conference Championship tournament in the Chesapeake Bay are:
1st: Miami University of Ohio – Josh Prephan, Perrysburg, Ohio, and Chris Bulaw, Wheaton, Illinois, five bass, 9-12, $2,000 Club Scholarship
2nd: Shenandoah University – Thomas Arens and Billy Arens, both of Purcellville, Va., five bass, 8-8, $1,000 Club Scholarship
3rd: Adrian College – Jacob Bayer, Westfield, Mich., and Jarrett Martin, Gallipolis, Ohio, five bass, 8-8, $500 Club Scholarship
4th: Schoolcraft Community College – Clayton Hatton, South Lyon, Mich., and Anthony Gilmore, Livonia, Mich., five bass, 7-15, $500 Club Scholarship
5th: Central Michigan University – Jason Terwilliger, Pigeon, Mich., and Brandon Carman, Mecosta, Mich., five bass, 7-14, $500 Club Scholarship
6th: Ohio State University – Tom Csepe, Copley, Ohio, and Sidney Hoover, Findlay, Ohio, five bass, 6-10
7th: Lake Superior State University – Hunter Scharphorn, Grand Haven, Mich., and Jake Dorony, South Lyon, Mich., four bass, 5-12
8th: Ohio Northern University – Austin Hostetler, Dover, Ohio, and Cole Cochran, Troy, Ohio, five bass, 5-5
9th: Northwood University – Zach Lowe, Huntington Woods, Mich., and Travis Riedel, Falmouth, Mich., four bass, 4-11
10th: Ohio State University – Ben Wiley, Newbury, Ohio, and Colin Bope, Rushville, Ohio, three bass, 4-11
11th: Ferris State University – Daniel Konkle, Sparta, Mich., and Jake Huested, Stanwood, Mich., four bass, 4-9
12th: Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania – Kyle Brown, Wexford, Pa., and Tyler Sheppard, Hermitage, Pa., three bass, 4-9
13th: Ohio State University – Jeremy McLaughlin, Wheelersburg, Ohio, and Kain Fadeley, New Philadelphia, Ohio, three bass, 4-8
14th: Ramapo College – Andre Vicari, Wayne, N.J., and Ryan Worth, Ronkonkoma, N.Y., three bass, 4-5
15th: Pennsylvania State University – Sean Cummins, Huntingdon, Pa., and Matt Bakewell, Brownsville, Pa., two bass, 4-2
This FLW College Fishing Northern Conference was the second regular-season qualifying tournament. The third and final regular-season event for Northern Conference anglers is a regular-season event scheduled for Aug. 1 on Chautauqua Lake in Bemus Point, N.Y.
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
