The Oklahoma State University duo of Rhett Meyer of Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Jake Biram of Tulsa, Oklahoma , won the YETI FLW College Fishing Southern Conference tournament at Fort Gibson Lake Saturday with a five-bass limit weighing 16 pounds, 7 ounces.
The victory earned the Cowboys bass club $2,400 and the team will now advance to compete at the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship, scheduled for May 30-June 2 on the Red River in Shreveport, Louisiana.
“We fished in the mid-lake area for most of the day, from the Highway 51 Bridge up to Whitehorn Cove Marina,” said Biram, a sophomore marketing major. “It was really windy, so we just tried to play to the conditions and we fished every shallow wind-blown point that we could find. We probably hit around 10 to 12 different points throughout the day.”
“We caught a lot of sand bass and drums, but we just had to weed through those to get the bass,” said Meyer, a sophomore majoring in agricultural business. “We only had five keeper bites all day.”
The duo started their morning throwing squarebill crankbaits and topwater baits, but quickly switched to (ghost-shad) Bill Lewis Rat-L-Traps after boating a couple of early keepers.
“I think the key for us was the Rat-L-Trap,” Meyer said. “We threw the squarebill a lot, but we were not getting any bites. The Rat-L-Trap was getting down deep enough to get us the bites.”
“Fishing slow was important,” Biram added. “We had to be methodical, but also make sure we were staying on the move to be in the right place at the right time. It was an awesome day.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2018 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Oklahoma State University – Rhett Meyer, Stillwater, Okla., and Jake Biram, Tulsa, Okla., five bass, 16-7, $2,400
2nd: Northeastern State University – Colin Adams and Caleb Gibson, both of Tahlequah, Okla., five bass, 14-2, $1,000
3rd: Rogers State University – Alex Torkleson, Sand Springs, Okla., and Alec Murphy, Claremore, Okla., five bass, 13-2, $500
4th: Oklahoma State University – Logan Moody, Claremore, Okla., and Blake Capps, Muskogee, Okla., five bass, 12-14, $500
5th: Southwestern Oklahoma State University – Charles Blood, Weatherford, Okla., and Dalton Warrington, Thomas, Okla., five bass, 11-9, $500
6th: Rogers State University – Dillon Roberts, Claremore, Okla., and Ty Crutchfield, Inola, Okla., five bass, 11-6
7th: East Texas Baptist University – Colby Simmons, Marshall, Texas, and Brandon Barber, DeBerry, Texas, five bass, 11-6, $200
8th: Oklahoma State University – Bates Enmeier, Enid, Okla., and Dexter Flick, Stillwater, Okla., five bass, 10-15
9th: Dallas Baptist University – Ryan Nevil, Forney, Texas, and Cole Trotter, Ozark, Ark., four bass, 10-9
10th: Tarleton State University – Dylan Jebousek, Cypress, Texas, and Justin Faterkowski, Montgomery, Texas, four bass, 10-8
Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com .
This YETI FLW College Fishing Southern Conference event at Fort Gibson Lake was hosted by the Wagoner Area Chamber of Commerce and was the final regular-season qualifying tournament for FLW College Fishing anglers in 2017. The next YETI FLW College Fishing event will be the 2018 season-opener, a Southern Conference tournament, scheduled for Jan. 13 on Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Lufkin, Texas.
FLW College Fishing teams compete in three 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 20 teams from the annual FLW College Fishing Open will advance to the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship on the Red River, hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission & Red River Waterway Commission. Additional teams will qualify for the National Championship if the field size in regular-season events exceeds 100 boats.
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 that is recognized by their school.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow College Fishing on Facebook atFacebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter atTwitter.com/FLWFishing . VisitFLWFishing.com to sign up or to start a club at your school.
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 2017 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW conducts more than 258 bass-fishing tournaments annually across the United States and sanctions tournaments in Canada, China, Mexico, South Africa 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. For more information visit FLWFishing.com and follow FLW at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.