Author: Stan Miketa

We are two events into our college fishing season fishing the Northern Division of the FLW college fishing program. It has been a fun year thus far with many miles traveled and new things learned. We started the year on April 23rd at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Smith Mountain is a beautiful lake with amazing scenery and some good fishing. For the first time in club history we were able to send two teams, Stan Miketa/Mario Chance and Jeff Grope/Jared Latone. We spent three days in Virginia giving us two days of practice on the lake. The event set up to be a pre-spawn/spawning event. Both teams spent their time looking for bedding fish in the backs of pockets. Come tournament day the team of Stan and Mario ended up with 11 lbs even and finishing in 15th just 5 places shy of a top 10 and a trip to the National Championship. They caught all of their fishing sighting fishing beds with drop shots and a texas rigged Strike King Rage Craw. Stan and Mario couldn’t find any kicker fish to help them get the few extra ounces needed for a top 10. There was a lot of traffic on tournament day with multiple other events that didn’t help Jeff and Jared get to there fish. Overall a lot was learned by each person and we hope to pick it up the rest of the way.

Here we are with the second event of the year on June 4th on the Potomac River in Maryland. The team of Jeff Grope/Jared Latone were able to make the trip towards our nation’s capital in search of some tidal water bass. They spent four days in Maryland giving them some time to practice and learn this river system. The Potomac was picking up and was producing some solid limits. They were able to catch some quality fish in practice and eliminate a lot of water. Jeff and Jared focused on fishing grass lines as well as going shallow into the lilly pads. A major factor of the Potomac is being able to learn the tides and pick your spots at the appropriate times. It is something none of us are used to living and fishing in Ohio. On tournament day Jeff and Jared ended up with four fish for 8-14 lbs which put them in 34th place. It ended up being a tougher day than expected trying to work the tides. They were able to catch their fishing flipping grass edges with a Missle Baits D Bomb and throwing frogs as well and catching a few on a crankbait later in the day.  Still one more event left, July 23rd on Chautauqua Lake for both teams to make a top 10 to qualify for the National Championship.