Bass Fishing May - Jun 2017 | Page 96

ON TOUR YETI FLW COLLEGE FISHING YETI FLW COLLEGE FISHING WINNING TACTICS By Chad Love B SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE – LAKE HARTWELL – MARCH 18 ryan College team anglers D. J. Barber (right) of Gardendale, Ala., and Matt Brown of Corbin, Ky., used a “secret” red square-bill crankbait to sack a five-bass limit weighing 18 pounds, 14 ounces and win the YETI FLW College Fishing Southeastern Conference tournament March 18 on Lake Hartwell. Barber, a business management sophomore, said a long run up the Seneca River to a pocket of dirty water they found during practice produced all their winning fish. “After we pulled up, before I could even stand up and grab my rod, Matt caught a 6-pounder on his first cast,” says Barber. “For the next 40 minutes we caught them on every cast,” adds Brown, a business marketing freshman. “We were throwing a red square-bill crankbait – I can’t share the name of it, though. It is an old Tennessee secret, and I have some old friends that would kill me if I shared it.” U CENTRAL CONFERENCE – LAKE OF THE OZARKS – APRIL 1 mbrella rigs and bluff walls were the winning combination for the  University of Wisconsin- Whitewater team of Jared Mataczynski (left) of Wausau, Wis., and Steve Nebel of Whitewater, Wis., at the YETI FLW College Fishing Central Conference tourna- ment. The pair weighed in a five-bass limit worth 19 pounds, 5 ounces. “The key for us was just trying something different,” says Mataczynski, a senior majoring in entrepreneurship. “A lot of the bluffs we were fishing did not have a ledge or a shelf, just a steep wall. We tried them anyway and managed to catch some good fish there.” The team fished Keitech Swing Impact FAT swimbaits on its umbrella rigs – the 3.8-inch model on the outside and a 4.8-inch bait with its tail dyed chartreuse in the middle. “We wanted the bass to hit that bait [the middle one], because that had one of the three hooks allowed in it,” says Nebel, a senior business major. “We dipped the tail in chartreuse to differentiate it from the others.” 94 FLWFISHING.COM I MAY-JUNE 2017