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Headed to the National Championship!


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Been out of town the past week in Alexander city, Alabama fishing Lake Martin.

The B*** Collegiate series event was Feb 4-6th and we were fishing representing UF. During practice it was beautiful warm weather, but come the day of the tournament it was 25 degrees and the deck of the boat was icing. In fact, i had icicles on the seats!!

Day 1 we pulled up to our spot to find the rain from the cold front had turned the area to complete mud and it ruined the area so we had to leave. We ended up pounding our spot right next to the ramp scrounging for bites, and got 2 key bites in the last 5 minutes of fishing to finish our limit. My partner actually caught a quality fish on the last cast as i cranked the big motor and as we were drifting off the shoreline to leave. Caught that fish at 354 with a check in time of 4! A reminder to never give up!

At weigh in everyone brought in 7-8 lb bags including us so we sat in 103rd place of 228 boats with first place at 12.8lbs.

Day 2 began with a quick limit within eye sight of the ramp, but not a big limit. Thats when things changed for the better, i decided to do something i hadnt done all week and pick up a crankbait and try to get some largemouth b*** (spotted b*** are more common in the lake but also weigh less). First spot i immediately cast and pull a 2-2.5 lb largemouth which im happy about. 2 cast later i cast right next to it and a really nice 3.5-4 lb b*** jumps. Get that one in and am happy knowing we need to have a big day to make the 26 boat cut for day 3. 2-3 casts later my crankbait just stops like it snagged something, and up comes a big girl! As im fighting her, my talon remote gets tangled in the reel so i cant reel anymore and have to hold the rod high to get her where my partner can net her. Once we got that one in the boat we were pumped! We caught those 3 fish in a 5 minute span, and my partner didnt even get a chance to retie before he had to grab the net and get one in. The rest of the day was spent with the crankbait upgrading a few fish. The 2nd best part of the whole day was we burned 2 gallons of gas and were within eyesight of the ramp all day

At weigh in we had the 500$ big b*** award for a little while until we were beat by a 6-12 largemouth. We shot all the way into 9th place and made the cut, meaning we had succeeded in making it to the national championship where we can win a truck and boat combo as well as all entry fees paid for the next years southern open tournaments.

Day 3 had a glitch, I was scheduled to take the LSAT at Auburn so my partner would have to fish alone. He ended up with 4 small keepers and we dropped to 25th place out of 224, but everyone was separated by only a couple lbs.

I managed to make it back in time for weigh in where they hitch us up to Toyota trucks and drive us up to the stage and grab our fish from the livewell in front of the crowd which is cool. Afterwards, we were interviewed because we had the unique situation of him fishing alone, and an article will come out soon which should be an interesting read.

It was a great week, but stinks to come back to school again! :(

The 2nd photo is my partner alone on day 3

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Awesome work Shane! You're a better man than me... no way i'm missing Day 3 on a stage like that to take a test!!!!! No way to reschedule? Definitely the time to use the "my grandma just died", "car accident", etc. ha ha

Good for you though! There will be plenty more tournaments to fish!

Josh B.

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