Auburn Wins College Fishing Event

3/1/2010 10:11:05 AM

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The Auburn University team of Shaye Baker and Kenneth (Jordan) Lee won the National Guard FLW College Fishing Southeast Division event on Lake Okeechobee Saturday with six bass weighing 11 pounds, 7 ounces. The victory earned the team $10,000 to be split evenly between the university and the university’s bass-fishing club. The win also helped them advance to the Southeast Division Regional Championship where they could ultimately win a Ranger 177TR with a 90-horsepower engine wrapped in school colors for their school’s club and $25,000 for the school they represent.

“I am glad we got them today,” Baker said. “I like Florida, but the fishing was though today. I like fishing a little closer to home.

“Jordan and I weren’t able to do any pre-fishing for this tournament, so we relied heavily on what me and my partner learned at last year’s tournament. We fished the same area on the southwest corner of the lake, near Turner’s Cove, where we pulled up on some grass and found fish biting.

“We actually caught our limit by 9:30 a.m. which really helped us a lot. We then concentrated on finding some bigger fish that we knew were out there. Unfortunately this cold front shut the fish down, and we couldn’t really find that big one. We caught most of our fish with Reaction Innovation Skinny Dippers, the ones we missed using Skinny Dippers we got on Yamamoto Senkos.”

“I was really surprised we won,” Lee said. “With our low weight, I didn’t think we would even make the top five. The cold front that came through really made the bite tough. I knew my partner was a good fisherman, so we just hoped for the best.”

Payback is sweet for Baker as last November he and his 2009 partner finished second behind the University of Florida team of Jake Gipson and Matthew Wercinski at the Southeast Division Regional Championship. Baker and last year’s partner, Dennis Parker, along with the University of Florida and 23 other team’s from across the country will participate in the 2009 National Championship event which is being held April 10-12 at Ft. Loudoun and hosted by the University of Tennessee.

Rounding out the top five teams today were Southern Polytechnic State University – Dustin Holland and Zachary Dixon (three bass 10-10, $5,000); University of Central Florida – Leonard Gordon and Miles Burghoff (six bass, 9-14, $4,000); Tennessee Tech – Cody Gass and Adam Goodwin (six bass, 8-15, $3,000); University of South Carolina, Upstate – David Scruggs and Michael Smith (six bass, 8-12, $2,000).