“Today was so awesome,” said Kenney, who recently graduated with a degree in Agricultural Business. “We’ve had a string of bad luck our past few tournaments and we hadn’t qualified for the Invitational at Chickamauga. This was my last chance. I’m so happy that we finally broke our curse.”
The Bulldog bass club said that they targeted the Guntersville ledges, fishing deep with a jig and a deep-diving crankbait. They estimated that they caught between 60 to 80 fish throughout the day, with 30 of them weighing more than four pounds.
“We found our ledges earlier this week in our pre-fish period,” Kenney said. “We caught a limit right away at our first spot today and then caught fish pretty steadily all day long. Most of our fish came on a ?-ounce football-head jig with a Wackem Crazy Baits Tater Bug, both in green-pumpkin. We also caught some fish on a Strike King 10XD crankbait.”
“There wasn’t nearly as much boat traffic today as I thought there would be,” said Treadwell, a senior majoring in Finance. “We had seven or eight different areas that we fished and we rotated through each around three or four times. We saw a few boats, but a lot of our areas we had to ourselves.
“I think one of the main keys for us today was our rods,” Treadwell continued. “We fished with both ALX Rods and Fenwick Rods and they were clutch when we were throwing that 10XD.”
“Our Lowrance electronics were pretty crucial, too,” added Kenney. “We were able to find those big schools out deep and get on the winning fish.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Southeastern Conference Invitational tournament are:
1st: University of Georgia Byron Kenney, Griffin, Ga., and Will Treadwell, Buford, Ga. five bass 26-15 $2,000
2nd: University of Alabama Logan Shaddix, Cullman, Ala., and Charles Hurst, Arley, Ala.( five bass 26-4 $1,000
3rd: Birmingham-Southern University Matthew Oliver, Gardendale, Ala., and Garrett Whitworth, Huntsville, Ala. five bass 26-2 $500
4th: Mississippi State University Justin Atkins, Columbus, Miss., and Grant Galloway, Houlka, Miss. five bass 25-11 $500
5th: University of South Carolina Patrick Walters, Summerville, S.C., and Robert Brannon, Gaffney, S.C. five bass 25-2 $500
6th: Auburn University Mitchell Jennings, Auburn, Ala., and Garrett Roberts, Cullman, Ala. five bass 25-1
7th: Bethel University Cody Ross and Dewey Swims, both of Jackson, Tenn. five bass 24-10
8th: Auburn University-Montgomery Ronald Nummy, Prattville, Ala., and Tyler Strock, Slapout, Ala. five bass 23-3
9th: Seminole State College Kevin Lucas, Orlando, Fla., and Neal Combs, Osteen, Fla. five bass 23-1
10th: Tennessee Tech University Matt Allen, Cookeville, Tenn., and Zach Youngblood, Silver Point, Tenn. five bass 22-2
11th: Auburn University Ben Curry, Hayden, Ala., and Timmy Ward, Childersburg, Ala. five bass 21-5
12th: North Alabama University Cody Harrison and Wesley Anderson, both of Moscow, Tenn. five bass 21-0
13th: Columbus State University Brad Davis, Winder, Ga., and Michael Chambliss, Cataula, Ga. five bass 20-13
14th: North Carolina State University Bryce Owen, Carthage, N.C., and Dustin Millwood, Cherryville, N.C. five bass 19-
15th: Florida Gulf Coast University Christian Smith, Coral Springs, Fla., and Hunter Bozeman, Ocala, Fla. five bass 18-14
FLW College Fishing teams compete in three qualifying events 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 invitational tournaments. The top 10 teams from each conference invitational tournament will advance to the 2015 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
College Fishing is free to enter. All participants must be registered, full-time undergraduate students at a four-year college or university and members of a fishing club recognized by their college or university.
The FLW College Southeastern Conference Invitational tournament is scheduled for Oct. 18-19 at Lake Chickamauga in Hixson, Tenn., and is hosted by the Greater Chattanooga Sports Committee.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow College Fishing on Facebook at Facebook /FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter/FLWFishing. Visit the CollegeFishing website to sign up or to start a club at your school.
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 2014 over the course of 229 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. For more information about FLW visit the FLWOutdoors website and look for FLW on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
By: Joe Opager, Director of Public Relations
