At last year's BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship, Bethel University's Matt Roberts and Zack Parker finished a distant 10th, more than 15 pounds behind the winning North Carolina State team of Ben Dziwdulski and Ethan Cox.
This year, anything short of victory would've been considered a failure in their eyes.
Seizing on Roberts' ledge-fishing pedigree to work over schools of post-spawners at Lake Pickwick, the pair pulled off a day-2 rally that carried them from 6th place to the win last week behind a tournament-best 25.88-pound stringer. Their day-2 bag was anchored by a 7.87-pound giant and their total haul of 46.76 pounds set the record for highest winning weight in the 7-year history of the Association of Collegiate Anglers national championship event. Tennessee Tech's Joe Slagle was 2nd for the second straight year.
Both Roberts and Parker are closing in on degrees in pre-professional studies with an eye toward working in the healthcare industry, but a career in fishing doesn't sound too bad either.
Here's the scoop on how they did it.
In Their Words
> Matt Roberts: "We had a real good event. It was our school's first national championship so it means a lot. Who knows? It could be a stepping stone to the next level. We fished the event last year around the same time and we knew what was going on – mostly post-spawn. This year, though, it seems like everything has been happening later, but we knew it'd be won offshore. Last year, we'd found 20 to 25 schools of fish, but just couldn't get the big ones to bite. This year, we had only 12 to 15, but we knew those schools were capable of producing a 25-pound bag. The first day, we kept saying that we were missing that one big bite. On the second day we got it."
> Zack Parker: "We came in 10th last year so we came into this one going for the win. We weren't settling for 2nd by no means. We were going to try to catch big fish because we knew a limit wasn't going to cut it. All practice, all we did was look for big ones. We must've spent 25 hours during practice and the tournament using our electronics to find the fish. We'd make a few casts and see how many were there and get an idea for how big they were.
"My experience on the Tennessee River gave us a huge advantage I think. It's all I like to do is fish offshore. If I'm in less than 20 feet of water, that's not my style. I love sitting in 25 feet and throwing a crankbait or swimbait or jig and catch them that way. Kentucky Lake and Pickwick fish pretty similar to each other and you could tell from the standings that the Tennessee River guys stood out."
3 Keys To Victory
> "Throwing the Strike King swimbait," Roberts said. "It's how we got the big bites."
> "Lining up at the right angle on those schools that we knew had big fish in them," Roberts said. "We would hit them at different angles, but there was one cast you could make that would make them bite."
> "Our philosophy was we had those 12 schools, but we had narrowed it down to five," Parker said. "We wouldn't sit on a school for more than 15 minutes. There are always fish biting somewhere and we knew if we pulled up on one of those schools at the right time, we could catch 25 pounds like it was nothing. It was a big timing deal and if I got one to bite and Matt's lure was right there, he'd get bit and we'd double up."
Winning Gear Notes
> Swimbait gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Kistler casting rods, Lew's casting reels, 15- and 17-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 3/4-ounce Buckeye J-Will swimbait head, 5 1/2" Strike King Shadalicious swimbait (ayu).
> Parker also caught a couple key weigh fish on the Strike King 10XD crankbait despite struggling with it during practice.
> Roberts said they had two retrieves for the swimbait – stroke it like a jig to trigger the suspended fish in 18 to 25 feet or let it hit bottom and bring it back slowly for more bottom-oriented swimmers.
The Bottom Line
> Main Factor In Their Success – “My partner Zack grew up on Kentucky Lake so he's used to fishing ledges," Roberts said. "I'm used to knee-deep water on the Mississippi River so we have a good combination of skills even though our strengths are different. I've learned a lot about ledge fishing from him over the last 3 years and that's made us a good team."
> Performance Edge – "Any time you're on Tennessee River, the better you are with electronics, the better you're going to catch them and the more fish you'll find," Parker said. "The Lowrance HDS-10 and 12 units I have are the best there is with the side-imaging."
> For complete results, click here.
