8 |
PHOTO BY GARRICK DIXON PHOTO BY MATT BROWN |
|||
|
6 . ABU GARCIA COLLEGE FISHING PRESENTED BY YETI WILEY X COLLEGE FACEOFF Lake Erie Sept . 10
In the third Wiley X Faceoff event of the 2022 Abu Garcia College Fishing Presented by YETI season , Penn State University got a small measure of revenge after coming in second to Adrian College ( by virtue of a tiebreaker ) in Lake Erie a day earlier . The Nittany Lions team of Stephen Botek , Anthony Riello , Dylan Crystaloski and Jason Zubris tallied nine bass for 24-11 , edging out Kentucky Christian University by 1-14 in MLF ’ s catch , weigh , immediaterelease format that pitted the top two teams ( four anglers ) from the top five schools from the Northern Conference showdown the day prior .
Trailing Kentucky Christian was Adrian College ( 21-4 ), Western Michigan University ( 10-4 ) and Ohio State University ( 5-3 ), respectively .
|
7 . BASS PRO TOUR STAGE SEVEN PRESENTED BY MINN KOTA Mille Lacs Lake Sept . 10 – 15
If his 2022 Bass Pro Tour season is a hint at things to come , Dustin Connell should get to work on a “ BPT only ” trophy room at his home in central Alabama . Putting an exclamation point on a season in which he had already earned two Bass Pro Tour wins – Stage Three at Smith Lake and Stage Six at Cayuga Lake – Connell held off David Walker on a windblown final day on Mille Lacs to claim the season finale by a scant 4 ounces .
Connell finished the Championship Round with 82 pounds , 9 ounces to Walker ’ s 82-5 , catching a 2-1 with nine minutes left and holding on for dear life as Walker piled on 15 pounds of smallmouth over the final 13 minutes .
Connell , who has rapidly exerted himself as a wizard with Lowrance ActiveTarget live sonar , spent the
|
entire event plinking away at boulders and other pieces of isolated cover with a drop-shot armed with a Googan Baits Rattlin ’ Ned and a Googan Baits Lunker Log . In winning his third red-and-silver trophy of the season , Connell became only the fourth angler in contemporary bassfishing history ( 1980s to present ) to win four majors in a single season ( Jacob Wheeler , Kevin Van Dam and Denny Brauer being the other three ).
8 . TOYOTA SERIES PRESENTED BY A . R . E . PLAINS DIVISION Lake Truman Sept . 15 – 17
Having never been to Truman Lake before his few days of practice leading up to the Plains Division finale , Hunter Baughman of Judsonia , Arkansas , leaned heavily on his 100-plus waypoints that marked offshore brush and rock piles to pick off individual fish
|
throughout the event en route to 48 pounds , 10 ounces and a $ 33,929 payday . He edged out Brad Jelinek by 1-10 to get the job done , thanks in no small part to the largest bag of the tournament – 19 pounds , 1 ounce – on the final day .
Baughman primarily used a 3 / 4- ounce football jig and 5 / 16-ounce finesse jig he helped design with Brazalo Custom Lures to do most of his damage , regularly spotting individual fish on brush and rock using his forward-facing sonar and picking them off one by one . Luck was on his side , as well , on multiple occasions boating kicker fish that got hung up in brush or catching fish he ’ d broken off earlier in the tournament ( with his jig still in their mouth ). Baughman summed up his week quite well at the conclusion of the tournament .
“ There were a lot of things that shouldn ’ t have went the way they did ,” he said . “ Especially with fish I should ’ ve lost . Sometimes , when it ’ s meant to be , it ’ s meant to be .”
|