The winner of the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference tournament on Lake Chautauqua went to the Christopher Newport University (CNU) team of Cody Griffey of Smithfield, Virginia, and Peter Kenny of Ashburn, Virginia. They won with five bass weighing 12 pounds, 11 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference Championship tournament.
“This was the last College Fishing tournament that I was eligible to compete in, so the pressure was really on to make it in to the top 15 and advance to the Conference Championship,” said Griffey, who recently graduated from CNU. “To come up here to Chautauqua and get the win feels surreal.”
“We stayed on one key area for the majority of the day,” said Kenny, a senior at CNU. “It was a shallow, 10-yard long gravel bank that had a mixture of eel grass and milfoil. All of the fish we caught came from one foot of water or less.”
The duo said that the morning bite was crucial for them – they caught eight fish total, but not one after 8:30 a.m. All of their fish came on a 3/8-ounce Perch-colored B.J.’s jig with a white Zoom Swimmin’ Super Fluke.
“The shade line seemed to be the key,” Kenny said. “The sun was rising at our backs, and the way we positioned our boat allowed us to make long casts up to the bank. As soon as we would reel back to the shade line, that’s where we would get bit.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Northern Conference Championship tournament on the Chesapeake Bay are:
1st: Christopher Newport University – Cody Griffey, Smithfield, Va., and Peter Kenny, Ashburn, Va. (five bass, 12-11, $2,000)
2nd: Michigan State University – Daniel Sprague, Hastings, Mich., and Cody Harris, Grand Blanc, Mich. (five bass, 12-10, $1,000)
3rd: University of Maine – Brian Volkernick, Dixfield, Maine, and Cody Rubner, Acton, Mass. (five bass, 12-3, $500)
4th: State University of New York-Environmental Science and Forestry – Ethan Hall and Jacob Ball, both of Naples, N.Y. (five bass, 11-6, $500)
5th: Pennsylvania State University – Lance Brosious, Sunbury, Pa., and Derek Horner, Port Matilda, Pa. (five bass, 11-2, $500)
6th: Ramapo College – Mike Concato, Clifton, N.J., and Marc Concato, Wayne, N.J. (five bass, 11-0)
7th: Adrian College – Caleb Taylor, Zionsville, Ind., and Jacob Bayer, Westfield, Mich. (five bass, 10-8)
8th: Grand Valley State University – Michael Bilski, Rockford, Mich., and Justin Bruno, Nunica, Mich. (five bass, 10-6)
9th: Pennsylvania State University – Sean Cummins, Huntingdon, Pa., and Maurice Hudson Jr., Broomall, Pa. (five bass, 10-5)
10th: Kent State University – Matthew Holsinger, Massillon, Ohio, and Dante Gramuglia, Middlefield, Ohio (three bass, 10-4)
11th: Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania – Joel Hixon, Butler, Pa., and Evan Kretz, Allison Park, Pa. (five bass, 9-14)
12th: Ohio State University – Ryan Surface, Fenton, Mich., and John Belluardo, Peninsula, Ohio (five bass, 9-13)
13th: University of Akron – Kevin Arnold, Copley, Ohio, and Christian Combs, Norton, Ohio (four bass, 9-6)
14th: Shenandoah University – Thomas Arens and Billy Arens, both of Purcellville, Va. (five bass, 8-9)
15th: Adrian College – Nickolas Marsh, Commerce Township, Mich., and Zack Nelson, Northville, Mich. (five bass, 8-6)
Complete results can be found at CollegeFishing.com.
This FLW College Fishing Northern Conference tournament was hosted by Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau and was the third and final regular-season qualifying tournament. The next event for Northern Conference anglers will be the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference Championship, scheduled for Sept. 12-13 at the Chesapeake Bay in North East, Md.
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.
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.