“We have a little experience on this lake so we are really excited. We have some idea of what the lake looks like and we know it holds some decent amounts of fish,” said Kennedy Kinkade of Midvale, Utah.

“I love that lake. It’s a beautiful lake to fish on,” added Josh Worth of Grand Junction, Colo. “There are a few areas we already have mapped out, so we will divide up the lake for pre-fishing this week and see what that produces for us.”

Colorado Mesa University is in Grand Junction, in western Colorado, so what are these guys doing fishing the FLW College Southern Conference?

Kinkade explained:

“The first school out of Colorado to fish the FLW College Division was Colorado State on the other side of the state. Since they would have had to cross the Rockies to fish the Western Conference tournaments, FLW gave them the choice.

“FLW has given us the choice to fish the Western Conference, but we are happy in the Southern Conference. We have done well there, especially on this lake, so we thought it better to stay in the Southern Conference. We kind of know our competitors and we have some idea about the lakes.”

Kinkade added that they don’t get to fish a lot of lakes like the ones they do in the Southern Conference tournaments.

“It’s a lot of fun to be able to go down to the Southern tournaments and fish real southern lakes with real southern bass,” he said. “We had done a little recreational fishing in lakes and rivers around here, then in June 2014 we decided to do the college fishing competition,” Worth added.

Kinkade, a senior majoring in fisheries biology, and Worth, a senior majoring in biology with plans to become a teacher, have done really well since organizing the fishing team a little over a year ago. They won their first tournament on a southern lake – Grand Lake, in June 2014. They finished 14th on Lake Texoma in February. And they weighed in three limits, including the heaviest stringer in the championship round, for better than a 3.2-pound average to place 4^th in the FLW National College Championship on South Carolina’s Lake Murray in April.

Until now they have been the entire fishing team at Colorado Mesa, but some other students with boats have joined the team and plan to compete when qualifying starts in 2016.

As for the Southern Conference Championship this week, Kinkade said. “We are hoping to get a top 10 and make it back to the national championship.”

With the record these Western boys have made down South don’t count them out.

 

FLW College Fishing Southern Conference Championship

Oct 17-18, 2015

Grand Lake

Wolf Creek Park

www.flwoutdoors.com