Baylor barely

Holland, McAdams retain narrow lead in Texas Regional Championship

NATCHITOCHES, La. – They played the cards they were dealt, and when the dust settled, Baylor University’s Jay Holland and Andrew McAdams retained the lead on day two of the National Guard FLW College Fishing Texas Regional on Lake Sibley.

After jumping into the top spot on day one with 10 pounds, 15 ounces, the Baylor boys slipped in their productivity Sunday by weighing just 6-5. Nevertheless, they committed to a game plan, put in their time and kept themselves in position to lead the field with 17-4.

“We worked hard today,” Holland said. “It was a little bit harder today. We had six bites and capitalized on all but one.”

Holland and McAdams caught their fish on 1/2-ounce War Eagle spinnerbaits with gold and silver willow blades. They’re using two colors: Mouse (gray skirt) and Hot Mouse (gray skirt with chartreuse tips). The latter is a Screaming Eagle Series bait with a smaller profile to match smaller baitfish.

The leaders made the same milk run of about eight spots as they did on day one. McAdams said he’s concerned that their water may be fished out, but adjusting their pace for the final round may be the key to squeezing out one more day of productivity.

“If we fish slower in the morning than we did today, we might have a few more bites,” he said.

With cloudy, windy conditions and possibly showers forecast for day three, flipping and jigging patterns will suffer. However, dim skies and lots of surface disturbance will bode well for reaction baits.

As Holland noted, the midday sun that periodically poked through today’s partly cloudy conditions put a damper on the Sibley action: “Andrew caught one late in the day, but we had four pretty early. Once that sun gets up, during that period between 11 and 2 o’clock, they shut off. I think they’re moving in and out of that grass. After 2 (o’clock), I think they stay in that grass, and we can usually pick up another one.”

Texas State improves to second

Jay McCollum and David Cosner of Texas State University turned in one of the day’s two double-digit performances – theirs a 10-pound, 3-ounce effort that yielded a 16-12 total over two days and bumped them up three notches to second place.

In a great example of how teamwork balances individual efforts, McCollum ended up boating most of his team’s day-two weight after struggling on day one. McCollum used a 3/16-ounce white spinnerbait and a black jig with a green craw trailer to catch his limit, which included a 5-pounder and a 4-pounder.

“I got on them early this morning, and I had my limit in an hour and a half,” McCollum said. “That 5-pounder was my second fish of the day. He hit that spinnerbait pretty hard in the dead lily pads. That 4-pounder came on a jig on a seawall.

“Those two fish relieved some stress and sealed my day. They helped the team out a lot because I struggled yesterday with one fish that measured 13 inches. David struggled today with one fish, but as a team, we really pulled it together.”

Big limit propels Tarleton State into third

At the end of day one, they sat all the way down in 15th place, but after posting the heaviest weight of day two – 10 pounds, 6 ounces – Tanner Morgan and John Anderson gained a dozen spots on the leaderboard and secured a final-round berth for Tarleton State with their third-place total of 14-12.

“We had 4-6 after yesterday, so today we decided we needed to change,” Morgan said. “Yesterday we did a lot of running and gunning, covering a lot of water. We knew we had to do something different if we wanted to make a comeback. We went and fished our deepest hole very slow and super thoroughly. That’s where I caught my three fish, and then we ran around and fished some docks and rocks and brush, and John picked up his three.”

The deep spot was a steep bank that slid off quickly into about 15 feet. Concrete slabs and extensive brush presented an ideal scenario for Morgan’s 3/4-ounce craw-colored football-head jig with a black and red trailer. Anderson threw a Buckeye Lures shaky head with a plum-colored Zoom finesse worm.

Northwestern, Texas A&M round out top five

Jeffrey Rich and Aaron Sistrunk of Northwestern State placed fourth with 13-9. Andrew Shafer and Paul Manley of Texas A&M took fifth with 13-5.

Best of the rest

Rounding out the top 10 college teams after day two at the Texas Regional Championship:

6th: Josh Seale and Austin Adcock of Angelo State University, 13-4

7th: Joel Jackson and Logan Mount of LSU, 12-14

8th: Will Powell and Jeremy Bersche of Oklahoma State University, 12-11

9th: Zach Caudle and Joe Landry of LSU-Shreveport, 12-2

10th: Cody Burell and Jerod Hawkes of Texas A&M-Kingsville, 11-15

Day three of FLW National Guard College Fishing Series action continues at Monday’s takeoff, scheduled to take place at 7 a.m. CT at the public boat ramp on Sibley Lake, located at 2019 Texas Street in Natchitoches, La.