The Western Illinois University team of Alexander Bouldin of Girard, Illinois, and Matt Wolz of Joliet, Illinois, won the FLW College Fishing Central Conference opener on Table Rock Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 16 pounds, 14 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the 2017 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
“Our goal was to come into this event and make the top-10 cut,” said Wolz, a junior majoring in fire science. “The entire tournament was a great experience. We couldn’t be more excited about making a run for the national title.”
The duo said they built their winning limit running the backs of isolated pockets on the James River, just south of Piney Creek.
“We focused on transition areas where bass were schooling around edges of small chunk rock and pea gravel,” said Bouldin, a senior majoring in law enforcement and justice administration. “We just kept trying to key in on the finer rock by cranking a jig in there and ended up catching some nice smallmouth early.”
“I think we hit eight or nine different pockets and fished slower through the areas that produced during practice,” said Wolz. “We wanted to keep dragging on those rocks in spots that fit our schooling pattern. It was nice to really slow down and see what the lake could produce.”
The duo said they primarily used a green-pumpkin-colored Gene Larew Biffle Bug rigged on a Biffle HardHead Jig, as well as a green Storm Wiggle Wort. The team’s stringer consisted of two smallmouth and three largemouth bass.
“We only had eight or nine bites all day, luckily five of them were the right kind,” said Bouldin.
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2017 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Western Illinois University – Alexander Bouldin, Girard, Ill., and Matt Wolz, Joliet, Ill., five bass, 16-14, $2,000
2nd: Northern Illinois University – Chris Kobitter, Libertyville, Ill. & Riley Rollette, DeKalb, Ill., four bass, 16-11, $1,000
3rd: Missouri State University – Grant Gaskill, Sullivan, Mo., and Brandon Duemmel, Jefferson City, Mo., five bass, 16-2, $500
4th: University of Dubuque – Brian Goebel, Gratiot, Wis., and Austin Brimeyer, Dubuque, Iowa, five bass, 15-10, $500
5th: McKendree University – Reece Ellerbusch, Belknap, Ill., and Austin Chapman, Blue Mound, Ill., five bass, 15-3, $500
6th: Eastern Kentucky University – Logan Gabbard, Richmond, Ky., and Steven Petz, Strongsville, Ohio, five bass, 14-12
7th: McKendree University – Austin Niggli, Highland, Ill., and Brock Wilke, Saint Rose, Ill., five bass, 14-9
8th: University of Missouri – Austin Culbertson, Columbia, Mo., and Chandler Robertson, Sparta, Mo., five bass, 14-6
9th: Iowa State University – Dylan Rague, Carroll, Iowa, and Pat Morrison, Omaha, Neb., five bass, 14-4
10th: Moraine Valley Community College – Andrew Jensen and John Neubauer, both of Oak Lawn, Ill., five bass, 14-0
This FLW College Fishing Central Conference opener was the first regular-season qualifying tournament in the Central conference. The next event for Central Conference anglers is a tournament scheduled for May 14 on Lake Barkley in Kuttawa, Kentucky.
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: Brian Johnson, FLW
