The University of North Alabama team of Cody Harrison, Florence, Alabama, and Clint Frederick, Hodges, Alabama, won the FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference event on Lake Guntersville Saturday with five bass weighing 26 pounds, 8 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference Championship tournament.
“It feels great to win,” said Harrison, a senior majoring in Environmental Biology. “It’s been a while since I’ve fished a tournament so it feels good to be back.”
“When you win a tournament in this division it feels like you’re on top of a mountain,” said Frederick, a senior majoring in Industrial Hygiene and Chemistry. “I feel like we represented our school well and were blessed to catch what we did.”
The duo said they targeted schooling fish on the south end of the lake between Honeycomb Creek and Town Creek.
“We focused on seven different spots,” said Harrison. “We fished ledges while sitting in 26 to 27 feet of water and threw up to about 18 feet.
“Each spot had similar structure but different types of schools of fish swimming in them,” continued Harrison. “Some schools were larger but the fish were smaller in size, some were smaller but had a lot of the bigger fish.”
Frederick said the team caught their 16 keepers using a shad-colored Scottsboro Tackle swimbait.
“This morning we caught a couple keepers shortly after takeoff,” said Frederick. “Around 10 a.m. we hit a flurry of fish and filled our limit. From there we focused on culling.
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“The larger fish in the small schools were more difficult to catch, so we focused on the smaller fish in the big schools to cull,” said Frederick.
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Southeastern Conference Championship tournament on Pickwick Lake are:
1st: University of North Alabama – Clint Frederick, Hodges, Ala., and Cody Harrison, Florence, Ala., five bass, 26-8, $2,000 Club Scholarship
2nd: State University of West Georgia – Matthew Colbert, Riverdale, Ga., and Tyler Collins, Carrollton, Ga., five bass, 21-9, $1,000 Club Scholarship
3rd: Auburn University – Ethan Hayes and Garrett Roberts, both of Cullman, Ala., five bass, 21-4, $500 Club Scholarship
4th: Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College – Blake Yarbrough, Fitzgerald, Ga., and Taylor Thompson, Woodstock, Ga., five bass, 21-1, $500 Club Scholarship
5th: Georgia Highlands College – Eric Fisher, Kennesaw, Ga., and Jake Akin, Powder Springs, Ga., five bass, 20-10, $500 Club Scholarship
6th: Daytona State College – James Oltorik and Thomas Oltorik, both of Deland, Fla., five bass, 20-9
7th: University of North Alabama – John Maner, Florence, Ala., and Colt Kelso, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., five bass, 20-9
8th: University of South Carolina – Patrick Walters, Summerville, S.C., and Josh Rennebaum, Chapin, S.C., five bass, 20-6
9th: Florida Gulf Coast University – Zane Xanders, Mount Vernon, Ill., And Hunter Bozeman, Ocala, Fla., five bass, 20-6
10th: East Carolina University – Michael Corbishley, Raleigh, N.C., and Zachary Blalock, Winterville, N.C., five bass, 19-7
11th: University of Alabama-Birmingham – Alex Wolfe and Austin Handley, both of Helena, Ala., five bass, 18-9
12th: Gadsden State Community College – Nathan George, Ashville, Ala., and Russell Sapp, Lincoln, Ala., five bass, 18-2
13th: University of North Alabama – Brad Bice and Austin Mize, Hayden, Ala., five bass, 18-1
14th: Bethel University – Hunter Louden, Springville, Tenn., and Chase Aulidge, White Bluff, Tenn., five bass, 18-0
15th: University of North Carolina-Charlotte – John Auten, Huntersville, N.C., and Cole Blythe, Charlotte, N.C., five bass, 17-15
This FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference tournament was hosted by the Marshall County Convention & Visitors Bureau and was the second regular-season qualifying tournament. The next event for the Southeastern Conference anglers is scheduled for May 30 at Lake Hartwell in Hartwell, Georgia, and is hosted by the Hart County Chamber of Commerce.
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
