The Bryan College duo of Connor Cohran of Dalton, Georgia, and Cole Sands, of Calhoun, Tennessee, won the FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference event at Lake Chickamauga Saturday with five bass weighing 16 pounds, 3 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and qualified the team for the 2017 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
The duo narrowly edged out the 2015 FLW College Fishing National Champion squad of Patrick Walters and Gettys Brannon from the University of South Carolina, who weighed in a five-bass limit totaling 16 pounds, 2 ounces to finish in second place. A massive field of 203 college teams competed in the event.
“Today was so exciting,” said Cohran, a freshman majoring in Biology. “This was my first ever College Fishing tourney, and Cole really put us on some fish. The morning was a little better, but we caught around 35 fish today. We caught probably 25 of them on a green-pumpkin-colored MGC jig with a Strike King Rage Craw and the other 10 on swimbaits – a Strike King Shadalicious and a Gambler Big EZ.”
“Our school is about six blocks away from the lake, so I was able to practice here every day for the last month,” said Sands, a sophomore majoring in Business. “I think I fished every single grass mat on this lake. I figured out a pattern – the fish were not in the grass. They were right by it waiting to go in. It was almost like fishing offshore, but in grass.
“For a while this morning we were catching them on every single cast,” Sands continued. “Our most productive stretches were from Soddy Creek to Chester Frost.”
“We really have to credit our assistant coach at Bryan College, Coach Perron, as well,” Cohran said. “He let us borrow his boat – it was a little nicer and faster – and it definitely helped us get the win today.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2017 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Bryan College – Connor Cohnran, Dalton, Ga., and Cole Sands, Calhoun, Tenn., five bass, 16-3, $2,000
2nd: University of South Carolina – Patrick Walters, Summerville, S.C., and Gettys Brannon, Gaffney, S.C., five bass, 16-2, $1,000
3rd: University of North Alabama – Sloan Pennington, Childersburg, Ala., and Martin McCravy, Killen, Ala., five bass, 15-10, $500
4th: University of Tennessee – Anthony Thorn, Knoxville, Tenn., and Scott Ellis, Madison, Tenn., five bass, 15-5, $500
5th: University of Central Florida – Caleb Bundy, Lake City, Fla., and Jake Carter, Clermont, Fla., four bass, 15-5, $500
6th: Middle Tennessee State University – Austin Wyatt, Gladeville, Tenn., and Mekiah Jack, Mount Juliet, Tenn., five bass, 14-14
7th: Bethel University – Evan Owrey, Jackson, Tenn., and Kristopher Queen, Catawba, N.C., five bass, 14-9
8th: University of North Alabama – Lake Blasingame, Killen, Ala., and Triston Crowder, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., five bass, 14-1
9th: Jacksonville State University – Trevor Brown, Deltona, Fla., and Brandon Padilla, Roswell, Ga., four bass, 13-9
10th: University of Tennessee-Chattanooga – Patrick Hoskins, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Dillon Falardeau, Chattanooga, Tenn., five bass, 13-6
This FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference event was hosted by the Rhea Economic & Tourism Council and Fish Dayton and was the third and final regular-season qualifying tournament in the Southeastern conference. The next event for Southeastern Conference anglers will be the FLW College Fishing National Championship, held early next spring on a lake yet to be announced.
FLW College Fishing teams compete in 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 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.
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 CollegeFishing.com to sign up or to start a club at your 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 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: Joe Opager, Director of Public Relations
