Colorado Mesa University Wins FLW College Fishing Southern Conference Event On Grand Lake
MONKEY ISLAND, Okla. – The Colorado Mesa University team of Kennedy Kinkade and Josh Worth, both of Grand Junction, Colo., won the FLW College Fishing Southern Conference tournament on Grand Lake Saturday with a five-bass limit weighing 16 pounds, 4 ounces. Their win qualified them for the 2014 Southern Conference Invitational on Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
“This is the first tournament we’ve entered into. We just formed our club in April so it’s a great way to start off,” said Worth.
“We’re so excited about this win,” said Kinkade, who used to play college baseball for Colorado Mesa University. “I’ve never even fished a lake that has shad in it before.”
“We had about two and a half days of practice,” said Worth. “In Colorado there’s nothing like this around us, so everything looked good. We found some deeper docks that had some big fish and ran around the lake and put in some waypoints on stuff we liked the look of. By the end of practice we had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do.”
The pair said that they fished several key docks at the beginning of the day and landed one big fish and lost a big fish before making the move that would secure their victory.
“Later in the morning we moved up to Honey Creek and fished an area that looked good in practice but that we hadn’t fished. We caught about 14 pounds in about 15 minutes,” said Worth.
“It was the opening to a deep creek that had a lot of shad,” Worth said of their key spot. “We were fishing a ledge that dropped from 15 to 18 feet and then dropped off into 35 feet. We were throwing a Delta Magic-colored ¾-ounce Pepper Custom Baits Pro Series Football Jig with a Big Texan-colored Berkley Havoc Pit Boss as the trailer. We caught some on black and blue-colored jigs, but brown and black seemed to do better.”
“We’re absolutely looking forward to the Invitational on Sam Rayburn,” Kinkade went on to say. “It is really exciting to be able to get down and fish these awesome lakes.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the 2014 FLW College Fishing Southern Conference Invitational are:
1st: Colorado Mesa University – Kennedy Kinkade and Josh Worth, both of Grand Junction, Colo. (five bass, 16-4, $2,000)
2nd: Northeastern State University-Tahlequah – Conner Schwab, Broken Arrow, Okla., and Lane Kindle, Westville, Okla. (five bass, 14-6, $1,000)
3rd: Oklahoma State University – Michael Hall, Inola, Okla., and Dustyn Pendergraft, Claremore, Okla. (five bass, 13-6, $500)
4th: University of Arkansas – Drew Porto and Kenneth Anderson, both of Fayetteville, Ark. (five bass, 12-14, $500)
4th: Oklahoma State University – Jacob Fish and Cameron Deborde, both of Stillwater, Okla. (five bass, 12-14, $500)
6th: East Central University – Tanner Masters and Wyatt Ryan, both of Ada, Okla., (five bass, 12-2)
7th: Northeastern State University-Tahlequah – Dylan Duncan and Kyrston Dozier, both of Kansas, Okla. (five bass, 11-6)
8th: Nicholls State University – Cameron Naquin, Gray, La., and Tyler Rivet, Raceland, La. (five bass, 10-5)
9th: Oklahoma State University – Austin Wright, Tulsa, Okla., and Spencer Randolph, Stillwater, Okla. (four bass, 10-4)
10th: University of Oklahoma – Caleb Masters, Bixby, Okla., and Landon Dixon, Hinton, Okla. (five bass, 8-5)
11th: Southeastern Oklahoma University – Jonathan Furlong, Bixby, Okla., and Dwight Camp, Talihina, Okla. (three bass, 7-10)
12th: Texas A&M-Kingsville – Aaron Canul and Kevin Rock, both of Kingsville, Texas (three bass, 7-9)
13th: Texas State University – Sam Stone, Austin, Texas, and Jedidiah Holt, San Marcos, Texas (four bass, 7-7)
14th: Southwestern Oklahoma State University – Mitchell Decker, Broken Arrow, Okla., and Shane McGlothlin, Anadarko, Okla. (three bass, 7-6)
14th: Tarleton State University-Stephenville – Austyn Fowler and Zach Husrst, both of Grand Saline, Texas (five bass, 7-6)
Complete results can be found at CollegeFishing.com.
FLW College Fishing teams compete in three qualifying events in one of five conferences – Central, Northern, Southern, Southeastern and Western. The top 15 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.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow College Fishing on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWFishing. Visit CollegeFishing.com to sign up or to start a club at your school.