The Slippery Rock University team of Logan Pollman of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, and Tyler Sheppard of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, won the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event on the Potomac River Saturday with five bass weighing 18 pounds, 1 ounce. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the 2017 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
“This is the first time our club has ever won an FLW College Fishing event,” said Pollman, a senior majoring in exercise science. “We’re a small school so it really means a lot for our program.”
“I’m hoping we can get more people interested in the sport after a win like this,” said Sheppard, a senior majoring in biology. “It’s great exposure for our school and community.”
The duo said they spent their day concentrating on a large grass bed in water ½- to 2½-feet deep at the mouth of Mattawoman Creek. The bed, which stretched along the shoreline, was approximately 60 yards long and 25 yards wide.
“We started our morning throwing a black Snag Proof Ish’s Phat Frog where we could see weeds,” said Pollman. “We had a 6-pounder blow up on it within the first 10 casts which really helped set the tone for the day.
“We caught our limit fish sporadically throughout the event,” continued Pollman. “As the tide came in and pushed the fish deep, we slowed down and threw a Chartreuse Shad-colored Buckeye Lures swimjig. When the grass wasn’t folded over the top, we flipped a black and blue-colored Buckeye Lures Jig.”
The team said they also preferred a Tennessee Shad-colored Keitech swimbait when the tide receded.
“Every half-hour we got a decent bite and culled,” said Sheppard. “At 2 p.m., Logan was pulling up the trolling motor so we could head in to the scale and I caught a 3-pounder on the Phat Frog. That fish helped us secure the win.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2017 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Slippery Rock University – Logan Pollman, Slippery Rock, Pa., and Tyler Sheppard, Hermitage, Pa., five bass, 18-1, $2,000
2nd: Liberty University – Landon Riggleman, Lynchburg, Va., and Alex Williamson, Gorham, Maine, five bass, 17-5, $1,000
3rd: Adrian College – Dalton Breckel, Onsted, Mich., and Jeff Morton, Troy, Mich., five bass, 17-1, $500
4th: Johns Hopkins University – Sanli Wang, Baltimore, Md., and Qiurun Chen, Beijing, China, five bass, 16-12, $500
5th: State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry – Raymond Bentz, Hastings, N.Y., and Ethan Hall, Naples, N.Y., five bass, 16-0, $500
6th: Slippery Rock University – Joel Hixon, Butler, Pa., and Evan Kretz, Pittsburgh, Pa., five bass, 15-15
7th: University of Pittsburgh – Michael Dunn and Henry Colberg, both of Pittsburgh, Pa., five bass, 15-10
7th: Adrian College – Jarrett Martin, Gallipolis, Ohio, and Jacob Bayer, Westfield, Mich., five bass, 15-10
9th: Ohio State University – Jay Gramlich, Pickerington, Ohio, and Kyle Waller, Thornville, Ohio, five bass, 15-9
This FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event on the Potomac River was the second regular-season qualifying tournament in the Northern conference. The next event for Northern Conference anglers is the regular-season finale scheduled for July 23 on Chautauqua Lake in Bemus Point, New York.
FLW College Fishing teams compete in regular-season qualifying tournaments in one of five conferences – Central, Northern, Southern, Southeastern and Western. The top 10 teams from each division’s three regular-season tournaments and the top 15 teams from the annual FLW College Fishing Open will advance to the 2017 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.
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 2016 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW conducts more than 235 bass-fishing tournaments annually across the United States and sanctions tournaments in Canada, China, Mexico 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: Brian Johnson, FLW
