The Penn State University duo of Clayton Frey of York, Pennsylvania, and Derek Horner, of State College, Pennsylvania, won the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event at Chautauqua Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 13 pounds, 3 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and qualified the team for the 2017 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
“We expected to do well here, but we didn’t really expect to win,” said Horner, a junior majoring in Rehabilitation and Human Services. “Clayton and I had great teamwork today. The morning was very tough, but we stayed confident and we had good execution.”
“This is my third event fishing with Derek and I think that he and I work very well together,” said Frey, a junior majoring in Wildlife and Fisheries Science. “It took us all day to grind it out, but it feels pretty good to qualify for the National Championship.”
The duo said that they caught their winning limit targeting the plentiful docks around Lake Chautauqua. They estimated that they fished 100 to 150 docks throughout the day, throwing a wacky-rigged Cinnamon Brown-colored Yamamoto Senko and a green-pumpkin Jakked Baits football-head jig with a Strike King Rage Craw, also in green-pumpkin.
‘We caught around 15 keepers and stayed in Bemus Bay for the entire day,” Horner said. “The fish were sitting 6 to 7 feet deep.”
“We caught our last keeper about 10 minutes before we had to check in and I knew that it was going to be close,” Frey said. “I’m happy we’re going home with the win.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2017 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Pennsylvania State University – Derek Horner, State College, Pa., and Clayton Frey, York, Pa., five bass, 13-3, $2,000
2nd: Schoolcraft Community College – Anthony Gilmore, Livonia, Mich., and Clayton Hatton, South Lyon, Mich., five bass, 13-3, $1,000
3rd: Lake Superior State University – Jake Dorony, South Lyon, Mich., and Hunter Scharphorn, Grand Haven, Mich., five bass, 12-11, $500
4th: Adrian College – Jack Hippe III, Davison, Mich., and Brandon Herzberg, Clarklake, Mich., five bass, 11-9, $500
5th: University of Akron – Anthony Villalba, Silver Lake, Ohio, and Robert Webber, Elyria, Ohio, five bass, 11-8, $500
6th: Adrian College – Dalton Breckel, Brooklyn, Mich., and Ryan Sharnas, Davison, Mich., five bass, 11-5
7th: Ohio State University – Michael Whitacre, Hudson, Ohio, and John Belluardo, Peninsula, Ohio, five bass, 11-2
8th: Lake Superior State University – Keegan Russell, Gladwin, Mich., and Nic Rand, Kalamazoo, Mich., five bass, 10-12
9th: Virginia Tech University – Milton Sheesley, Amissville, Va., and Ian Hardesty, Round Hill, Va., five bass, 10-8
10th: Kent State University – Logan Willoughby, New Philadelphia, Ohio, and Trevor Gillett, Kent, Ohio, five bass, 10-5
Penn State won the event via tiebreaker over second place, Schoolcraft Community College. FLW College Fishing Rule No. 17 states: Total number of fish for the tournament will break ties. If a tie remains, it will be broken first by total number of live fish for the tournament, then the earliest entry for the tournament and then by lottery. Since both teams weighed in five fish, all alive, the earliest entry was the deciding factor. Penn State registered for the event first, earning them the tiebreaker decision.
This FLW College Fishing Western Conference event was hosted by the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau and was the third and final regular-season qualifying tournament in the Northern conference. The next event for Northern 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.
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
