Ryan Sparks and Zack McDonald of the Oregon State University Fishing Team will have one day of practice before the FLW College Fishing National Championship to figure out if South Carolina’s Lake Keowee is the same kind of deep, clearwater lake they are used to fishing in Northern California.

“We don’t know much about Lake Keowee,” Sparks said during a telephone call from the Houston Airport en route to Greenville, S.C., to fish the championship. “We know it’s a spotted bass lake with some largemouths in it. There are some blueback herring, but mostly shad for baitfish. So, we are going into it pretty much blind.”

Hopefully, Sparks said, he and McDonald will be able to figure some things out during that one day of practice before the tournament begins Thursday.

“We fish Northern California lakes, like Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville. Both of those lakes are deep and clear. We have a lot of experience on lakes like that,” he said. “We have fished Lake Havasu. All those lakes are pretty deep. We spent a lot of time fishing points and ledges that go from zero down to 40 feet and deeper pretty fast, and we are used to fishing for spotted bass and smallmouth. From what I have heard we match up with Lake Keowee pretty good.”

This will be the first venture into South Carolina for both college anglers, although they have come close to the Palmetto State before.

“We fished lake Chatuge for the Bassmasters College World Series last August and it’s half in North Carolina and half in Georgia.”

The OSU team placed 16^th in that College World Series, but they got to the national tournament by winning the Bassmaster College Series Western Regional last April on Clear Lake. They also won the FLW College Qualifier Western Conference on Roosevelt Lake in Arizona in February 2013 before placing 22^nd in the FLW College National Championship on Arkansas Beaver Lake in April. They placed 6th in the FLW College Qualifying Western Conference tournament on Clear Lake last October to qualify for the College Championship this week on Lake Keowee.

Both Sparks, a junior from Gearhart, Ore., and McDonald, a sophomore from Willis, Calif., are majoring in Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State.

“I will probably work for a year or so after college and then try bass fishing,” said Sparks, president of the OSU Fishing Club. “And if that does not work out, I will have my degree in fisheries and wildlife to fall back on.”

Meantime, he and McDonald are concentrating on figuring out the bass in South Carolina’s Lake Keowee which is situated in the mountains in the northwest corner of the state .

“We brought a few things with us that we do on the West Coast,” he said. “We tried them out at Chatuge and they worked pretty good so I think they will work out good on Keowee, too.”

 

FLW College Fishing National Championship

Mar 6-8, 2014

Lake Keowee

South Cove County Park

www.flwoutdoors.com