Window Of Opportunity

To win at every level is a goal all competitive anglers would love to accomplish. What makes that feat so challenging is that some levels have smaller windows of opportunity than others, and once you are done competing at those levels, you can never go back.

Collegiate fishing is a perfect example of one of those levels. At best you have 4 or 5 seasons to test your mettle, but if you got into the game several years after you started school, you have an even smaller chance to make your mark.

After several years of moderate success and near-misses, I finally made my mark. I, along with my partner Casey O’Donnell, won the 2011 BoatU.S. Collegiate Bass Championship!

Closing Window

Leading up to our trip to Lake Lewisville, near Dallas, Texas, I was feeling that my window of opportunity to claim a collegiate title was closing swiftly. I had just competed in the FLW College Fishing qualifier at Lake Eufaula, and had failed miserably. That event was the only opportunity I had this year to re-qualify for the Southeastern regional championship, and ultimately the national championship.

I went to Eufaula feeling comfortable (a.k.a. cocky) and ended up getting waxed by more-deserving teams who did their homework and went out and applied it to a very stingy fishery. I weighed zero fish for a total of 0.00 pounds.

I was pretty depressed about the whole thing – it really stinks when you miss your only opportunity to accomplish a goal. So, going into the BoatU.S. Championship, I knew that I needed to completely focus on the event and leave nothing on the table.

Practice

One thing I knew for sure was that the flipping bite was going to be pretty hot for this event. Over the last couple of years I had learned that one of the most reliable bites on Lake Lewisville is the shallow-bush bite during the post-spawn when the water is up high enough.

I think it's because there's so much competition for the bass on offshore structure with the white bass and other pelagic species. The black bass move around a bit more and it's hard to catch them 2 days in a row.

Casey and I looked at several options before concentrating our full attention on the shallow brush. We found about 25 small areas with my Navionics Platinum mapping chip that had the right mixture of willow bushes, water quality and contour features.

We knew that the wind would be a huge factor, since it was going to blow really hard and from two different directions during competition. We found enough areas to keep us alive regardless of the wind direction and intensity, though getting to them wouldn’t be fun.

The registration meeting that featured all of the event’s wonderful sponsors and some great guest speakers, including Hank Parker, was pretty cool for Casey and I. We were confident we had a strong plan going into the first day.

Day 1

The first day went better than we'd expected. Since the wind was calmer than it would be for day 2, we knew we needed to step up and bring a good sack to the scales to give us a cushion. It seemed that we couldn’t go wrong.

For example, in one instance we had a cameraman with us, and when I hooked a 5 1/2-pounder with him standing right next to me, I ended up boat-flipping the beast by lifting the rod over the cameraman’s head. Epically stupid, but it worked. That was the kind of day it was.

We ended up sticking with our rotation and flipping and pitching various baits, including Secret Lures jigs and Ouzo soft plastics, and culled about four times on our way to a 17.07-pound limit. It was enough to end the day in 2nd place, just ounces behind Arkansas Tech.

Day 2

Our biggest decision for the second day was whether we should stay with the same rotation or reverse it. We decided to stick with it, but many of the areas we'd fished the day before were completely trashed by the 20- to 30-mph winds, so we decided to branch out to some new locales.

We ended up catching four fish pretty quickly by expanding on our pattern and finding new areas. Unfortunately, after that fourth fish, the day became a major grind.

I was battling fatigue from lack of sufficient sleep and ended up setting the hook sideways three times, which resulted in three lost fish. Those included a 3-pounder that I pulled out of a willow bush, only to dump it at the side of the boat.

It was about 3:15, and our weigh-in was at 4:00. We were still running hard, busting our butts and my Triton in the rowdy Lake Lewisville waves, trying to get to our next areas. With 30 minutes to go we decided to make the run back in case something went wrong on the way. We stopped to throw our cameraman’s microphones in the dry storage, since the ride was rough and wet and because he'd told us earlier that they cost about $1,200 apiece.

When we got back to the Sneaky Pete’s area, we still had 15 minutes to fish. We bounced around two spots before tucking back into a pocket with a single laydown in the back. Casey and I both knew we needed one more fish to win as we made our way back to that single laydown.

We both made a pitch to the cover ... then I heard it.

“There he is!” Casey yelled.

Then I saw it – a 3-plus-pounder bolting out of the cover with the black and blue Secret Lures HD Flippin’ Jig pinned on its upper lip. It happened really fast and I can’t remember anything except that fish sliding into the net.

Unfortunately we hadn’t put our mics back on, and the footage of the moment is missing the audio. Oops!

Weigh-In

When we got to the weigh-in, we were happy that we'd finally gotten that fifth keeper, but we were sure we would miss the title by a couple of pounds – especially when Wade Middleton with CareCo Media said that there were some pretty big sacks brought in that day.

We were held at our boat to weigh second-to-last. It was a long wait. Finally, we got our turn.

We brought our bag to the scales, at which time I saw my friend Wayne with his family. Wayne had landed me my title sponsorship with JetWorks Air Center and Business Air. He was sitting in the front row. I was so happy to see they had made it to see me on stage.

Our bag ended up weighing 10.85 pounds, and we bumped the team sitting in the hot seat. Arkansas Tech was next.

I expected the moment to take forever, but when I saw how light that black weigh bag looked, I knew it. We had won.

It wasn’t until Arkansas Tech’s one fish was officially weighed that I started to celebrate.

Something Special

After the event, Casey and I spent the weekend with Wayne and other friends. We had a good time, rekindled some friendships, fished a little on the lake they live on and just enjoyed Memorial Day weekend.

Then it was Monday afternoon. Casey was at the wheel of the Expedition, eating sunflower seeds.

I think it was somewhere around Biloxi, Miss., where it hit us: We'd finally won our collegiate title.

Off to the next level.

Note: I would like to thank CareCo Multimedia, BoatU.S., the other sponsors and the whole event crew for putting on an amazing event. I would also like to thank the Lazer TroKar and Boat U.S. Angler Weigh-To-Win contingency programs for lining our empty pockets with some extra cash.

Miles "Sonar" Burghoff is a student at the University of Central Florida and an aspiring professional angler who writes a regular column for BassFan. To visit his website, click here.