The Centre Sportsman TV Show » Show Blog

College Bass Fishing Report

JimmyMoslak — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:23:24 +0000

The summer of 2009 has been a breakthrough year for College Fishing. This summer has been filled with large-scale college fishing tournaments. Bass fishing teams from all over the country are competing in many different “leagues” as one might call them. Under Armour, Boat US, CBAA (Collegiate Bass Anglers Association,) and the FLW each hold their respective events for collegiate anglers.

This summer, on July 9-12, Under Armour held its National Championship on the Arkansas River in pools 5, 6, and 7. North Carolina State’s Will White and Chris Wood bested the field of 60 teams with a three day weight of 28.97lbs.

Also, on May 25-29, Boat US held their Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship on Lake Lewisville in Texas. Kalem Vincent and Vincent Campisano of Murray State University conquered the field of 140 teams from over 70 schools to claim the title. Their two day total of 36.16lbs was enough to bring home the title.

My alma mater, Penn State University, competes every year in the CBAA Big Ten Championships. This year the event was held in April at Brookville Lake, Indiana. The University of Illinois came out victorious with 16.46lbs of bass. Penn State ended up in 5th place with 3.27lbs.
By far the most impressive series out of all of these tournaments is the FLW College Fishing presented by the National Guard. FLW and the National Guard are revolutionizing college fishing and really putting this sport on the map. They have 5 different divisions which compete in tournaments on some of the most prestigious bodies of water in the United States. The divisions are comprised of Western, Central, Texas, Northern, and Southeast divisions. Each region holds four separate qualifying tournaments.

During these FLW tournaments, anglers compete against 40 other teams who get the honor or riding with a FLW Stren Series Professional. The Stren Pro escorts the college anglers on the body of water in his/her boat. The Stren Pro isn’t allowed to give advice on those bodies of water or let you use his/her gear but he can give you pointers on fishing in general or other bodies of water. The college anglers operate the trolling motor and determine where to fish. The top 5 teams in each event get a cash prize for their college bass program and their school! The 1st place team at each event gets $10,000 ($5,000 for the club and $5,000 for the university.) Did I mention that it is all free to enter?! FLW and the National Guard really have a special thing going on that is really recruiting people to the sport.
After the four qualifying tournaments in each region, a regional championship is help with the top 5 teams from each of the four events. In the Regional Championship the 1st place team gets $25,000 for their club, $25,000 dollars for their school and a Ranger Bass Boat! Then, the top 5 teams in the Regional Championships get a place in the National Championship with the 1st place team winning $50,000 and a Ranger Boat for their club and $50,000 dollars for the school and a spot in the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup! Everything the FLW and National Guard are doing is phenomenal for collegiate anglers and for the sport.

With all of these organizations conducting these large scale college bass fishing tournaments, it is only a matter of time that this sport really takes off and gets a nationwide following. High school students will begin basing their choices on colleges where they are geographically and if they have a bass fishing team or not. It is going to be exciting to see! Guaranteed.

Keep watching ESPN, Versus, and other outdoor networks to watch all of these events in the near future.

Tight Lines!

Check out these respective organizations websites at:

FLW College Fishing

Under Armour National Championship

Boat US Collegiate Fishing Championship

Collegiate Bass Anglers Association (CBAA)

Return to Backwoods, WY

Brent Postal — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:08:27 +0000

After several years of hiatus, I headed back out to Cody, Wyoming to camp, fish, and generally enjoy being out of cell phone range. Accompanied by two other devout anglers, one blood, one close enough to be blood, we drove our unpredictable rental car deep into the wilderness. Our destination – the Sunlight Basin. Our goal – catch fish. The weather was as nice as can be. Memories were a certainty.
Only there was one problem. Seems we weren’t the only ones looking to rough it in this part of the country. The usually unoccupied campsites were overflowing with people. “I’ve never seen this many people here” we all said at one point or another. Four-wheelers and RV’s were everywhere. Finally, like a perfect spot outside the supermarket, a clear site emerged. It was just feet from the water! We unloaded the gear and began the simple yet time-consuming task of setting up camp. Just as we were standing up the tent, one of many four-wheelers came rumbling by, only this one didn’t keep going. The lady pulled in to our site and effectively ruined the jovial atmosphere with the words, “You can’t camp here.” We moved fearing a $5000 fine and would later learn that she was correct. Basically, you can’t camp that far into bear country, and to be honest, we did see grizzly tracks and scat not far from our tent. Fortunately, we found another site miraculously untaken a mile or two back, and set up camp number two.
By this point, we were all itching to fish. Over the next two days we would explore miles of Sunlight Creek with marginal success. It wasn’t like it used to be back in the day. “Where did all the fish go,” I thought. Then, on the last night of our stay in the basin, we got into scores of fish. Rising trout were taking bugs as far as the eye could see. We tied on some Adams dry flies and caught fish until it was too dark to set the hook. Best of all, we didn’t see any other anglers. It was just us and the trout. This was why we went to the Sunlight Basin. This is why we fish. But I knew enough to treasure this “easy” fishing, because tomorrow, we were off to challenge bigger water, bigger flies, and most certainly, bigger fish.
The North Fork of the Shoshone remains an untapped gem for big trout. Averaging 16 inches, trout make their way up from Buffalo Bill Reservoir into the river to spawn in the spring. Then, they remain in the river until the water temperatures and levels force them back to the reservoir. This gives anglers several months of prime fishing over big, hungry fish. We just happened to hit the river at the right spot, at the right time, as green drakes floated in foam lines like tiny sailboats. That is, until huge trout gulped them down with splashy rises. Unlike the previous night, we knew our presentations had to be flawless. And it took some practice. But once we figured it out we started catching trout of almost 20 inches on dry flies! With four weights! Rainbows, cutthroats, and cutbows all fell for our well-placed imitations. The jumped, dove, and thrashed there way all over the stream before succumbing to our eager hands and a quick photo or two. Now this is why we fish.
Those four days replanted the fly fishing seed deep down within me. Watching a trout as long as your arm slowly rise to your dry is as exciting as exciting gets. Looking back, the trip was perfect. We camped along Sunlight Creek with snow-capped mountains towering above us. We caught monster fish that snapped our lines at our first mistake in the battle. And as for the memories, I have too many to put down on paper.

Centre Sportsman Fishing Lake Erie

Scott Laukhuff — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:19:20 +0000

Lake Erie always amazes me with the quality of its fishery. I had the opportunity to fish a Pennsylvania Bass Federation tournament this weekend and the tournament was located on Lake Erie, Pennsylvania.

The Mr Bass West, 2 day event was part of the Pennsylvania Bass Federation tournament schedule and i was looking forward to fish this body of water. Lake Erie fishermen always brag about the size of their smallmouth. Most other lakes the largemouth bass is king; because it weighs more, but Lake Erie the smallmouth is the king, 5-6# smallmouth are not un-common.

I asked Centre Sportsman’s Marketing and Advertising Director Jim Brown if he wanted to fish this tournament with me, he said” he never fished Lake Erie and always wanted to try his luck, and yes he was interested.

” Boy was he in for a surprise”!

I gave him a briefing on lures and tactics that work best. Dragging a tube and drop shotting are two of the most productive tactics on Lake Erie and the lures are green pumpkin tubes, (Slamming tubes and Powerbait tubes), and for the drop shotting, 3″ Gulp leech (green pumpkin, goby magic) gets the nod, along with Gulp 3″ minnows and Gulp frys (green pumpkin). http://www.berkley-fishing.com/cat.php?k=95677&sk=95677

I started the day drop shotting a 3″ Gulp leech (in the”new” goby magic color), with 10# 100% Trilene Fluorocarbon . I wasn’t fishing long when I felt that familiar tap on the line. I set the hook and a huge smallie jumped out of the water. I got it to the boat, but lost it when my partner tried to net the fish. I pulled the fish towards the net and it jumped one more time…..GONE! My jaw dropped with disappointment, “WOW what a big fish” my partner said. ” That fish was definitely over 5#s”. After a moment of disblief i gathered my composure and starting fishing again. I was hoping for another chance at a Lake Erie giant smallmouth. I caught a lot of short keepers (must be 15″) that day and moments later….bam!…. another 5# smallie. I didn’t lose this one… with the guidance of my partner,…he said “take your time with this fish”. I landed a beautiful 5# + smallie. I had a 4 fish limit of nice fish, but needed to replace the smaller ones….imagine a 2# smallmouth,too small, and needs to be replaced. Several fish later i managed to catch a 4+# smallie and upgraded my limit. I was happy now!

Jim Brown caught several nice smallmouth dragging a Green Pumpkin/Chartreuse Slammin Tube. He was very impressed with the large size of the smallmouths, and wants to return to Lake Erie.

Jim did well in the tournament, he placed 5th, and I placed 8th. For a rookie tournament fisherman he did a great job.

….(a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes)….

Day 2 of the tournament small craft warnings made the lake off limits to fishing, so we had to fish in the bay. Sevier storms and lightning hampered the day and the fishing was slow.

I promise we will film a show on the how-to’s of fishing for smallmouth bass on Lake Erie if you promise me you will release the fish!

This fishery needs to be protected. All the bass in the tournament where released to fight another day.

What a weekend, …..an exhausted Scott

Centre Sportsman fishing a Carolina Rig on Sayers Dam, Howard, PA

Scott Laukhuff — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:35:50 +0000

Who said there is only one way to fish a lure? Most fisherman know that you can Texas Rig and Wacky Rig a senko style lure…..but did you know that you can Carolina Rig it too? You can Carolina Rig just about any lure, worms, creature baits, tubes, Slammin Sink Worms and Slammin Beavers.

That is what my Centre Sportsman Pro Staffer, Herb Wadsworth does, he is the Carolina Rigging king! He always has several Carolina Rig rods on his boat at all times. He says” the Carolina Rig is his favorite way to fish, because you can cover a lot of water and it gives the lure a slow presentation.

What is a Carolina Rig? Basically the Carolina Rig is a weight, bead and barrel swivel attached to the main line and 12”-18” leader of fluorocarbon or mono tied to the other side of the barrel swivel, and a hook. The hook size is determined by the body size of the bait, 3/0 is the basic all around size.

Fishing the Carolina Rig has a technique of its own, casting and retrieving are different than a basic fishing style. You lob cast the bait and use the rod to sweep the rig slowly back to the boat. When you feel the strike sweep the rod back…not up!

We started fishing down the mountain side of Sayers Dam and it didn’t take long for Herb to hook up with a nice largemouth bass. “Hey they are biting today….great!” said Herb. Herb was fishing a Slammin Beaver bait and I was fishing the Slammin Sink Worm. Both of us were fishing the baits Carolina Rig style.

We caught several fish down the mountain side (the side of the lake that the Bald Eagle Mountain meets the water) that morning. The trick to fishing the mountain side is….fish deeper than normal, because the old railroad bed runs parallel with the shoreline. The bass like to stage on the deeper side of the railroad bed and there is a ton of rocks. Another trick is when you feel hung up on a rock….don’t pull on your line but move directly above your bait and give it a pop with your rod tip. Most of the time this will get your Carolina Rig un-stuck.

We decided to move to one of the many road beds that are hidden at Sayers and fish them. (HINT: when at Sayers always fish the roadbeds) The bigger bass already moved out to the deeper road beds. The females are always the first to leave the spawning area, and they start to feed up. I caught several nice smallies off of the roadbed in front of the Howard ramp.

Conclusion: want to fish something different? Try a Carolina Rig with your favorite lure, or try Centre Sportsman’s Slammin Sink Worm or Slammin Beaver. Fish the roadbeds on Sayers, and you will be successful, “that’s guaranteed!”

Tight lines, Scott

Centre Sportsman fishing Lake Champlain

Scott Laukhuff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:44:41 +0000

When I first saw Lake Champlain I must admit it was a bit intimidating with the size of lake. Over 100 miles long!….but we planned to fish the northern end of the lake, just north of Plattsburgh, New York.

My first thoughts were ……..”where does one start fishing?” So I got a map out and said to my brother-in-law Mike, let’s start shallow and work our way deeper. The bass should be shallow and just finishing up the spawn. I tied on a Slammin Shad bait and started twitching it over the flats in the back of a cove. Well it didn’t take long and a smallmouth smashed the bait. The smallies in the flats ranged from 1#-3#’s, nice fish, but we were after the bigger smallmouth. My brother-in-law Mike tied a Slammin Sink Worm and slowly fished the bait back to the boat. The lure soon enticed a strike and he caught a nice smallie, about 2#’s. We both caught a lot of smaller fish but the shad bait produced more strikes. The bass were keying on minnow baits. We had a plan, one guy fish a faster bait (Slammin Shad) and the other throw a slower bait( Slammin Sink worm); we use this strategy a lot to determine the mood of the fish. Then we fish with the bait the fish want. …DAH !

The next day we moved to one of the shoals and we started to catch bigger smallmouth. My son Dana went along and he had fun catching big smallies on topwater, “I can’t believe this lake….fish everywhere!” he said.

We caught smallies with topwater baits, Slammin Tubes, Slammin Beavers, Slammin Sink Worms and my favorite, Slammin Shads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wNeA5OXq7s

We did catch nice largemouth back in the bays that had reeds and weeds. The largemouth were hitting Slammin sink worms Texas rigged. I would look for the reeds that had the most clumps of reeds, say three or more together. Just toss the bait in the reeds and hang on. One thing I noticed the bigger bass were in one section of the bay. I could see dark and light bottom transitions, and that’s were the bigger bass were located. I caught several 3#-4# with a Texas rig Slammin Sink Worm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQspjJEFk9Y

BAITS: The Slammin Shad is a plastic jerkbait that has a lot of action, plus you can kill the bait and watch it slowly fall to the bottom, and if you see the bait disappear….SET THE HOOK !

I rig the Slammin Shad with a #5 sickle hook , fluorocarbon leader and the main line, Fireline. “I love the stuff”. The Fireline helps with the hook set. Try a white Slammin Shad when you have clear water conditions, the fish will smash the bait.

The Slammin Sink Worm is a senko style worm that does it all. You can Texas rig it or wacky rig it. I Texas rig the worm when I am casting to an object, such as wood, thick weeds..etc. Wacky style is when I am fishing open water and the fish want a slow presentation. I wacky rig the weeds when there is pockets or openings in the weeds. This is a KILLER of a rig.

Try a Slammin Sink Worm when you have open pockets of deep weeds.

Conclusion: We caught hundreds of bass and that’s no CHAMP story( Lake Monster that is supposed to live in Lake Champlain).

Lake Champlain has some of the best bass fishing on the east coast, PERIOD! WOW that was a fun week.

later……..a worn out Scott!

We recommend staying at Marine Village Cottages http://www.marinevillagecottages.com/

Tell them Scott from the Centre Sportsman TV Show sent you!

Team2K fishing with the Centre Sportsman at Keystone Power Dam

Scott Laukhuff — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:58:10 +0000

Keystone Power Dam and Team2K

My ribs are still aching from fishing with Team 2K. Have you ever laughed all day long while fishing? I just experienced that day fishing with Mark Knapp and Frank Karl, (Team 2K) fishing Keystone Power Dam, Pennsylvania.

Mark and Frank teamed up to form Team 2K. They fish as a team in competitive bass tournaments throughout the east coast and combine there resources not only to compete in tournaments but also develop products for the fishing market. They developed a rod caddy and crawfish lure. Check out their website and YouTube videos. (http://www.team2kfishing.com/)

I met Mark and Frank several years ago while fishing a buddy tournament at Foster Joseph Sayers Dam in Centre County Pennsylvania, and they mentioned to me about fishing Keystone Power Dam. They wanted to show me this hot Pennsylvania lake. It has big Musky, Walleye, good Pan Fish and BIG Bass. So I said “ let’s go !”

The thunderstorms that were forecasted held off long enough to let us get out fishing. We started out fishing a Slammin Shad to catch that aggressive fish. Frank had several fish follow the bait and one couldn’t resist and smashed the white Slammin Shad. We observed the fish were schooling together already, so that meant the spawn was over.

I noticed the lake had some color from all the rain and decided to fish a Slammin Spinnerbait. TIP: when you encounter stained water always try a spinnerbait. It didn’t take long until a nice smallmouth smacked my Slammin Spinnerbait. Frank and I caught several more bass as we fished down the shoreline, but noticed further back in the bay we fished the less fish we caught, so we decided to move.

Mark suggested that we fish some points, we moved to a nice looking point and sure enough there was a school of smallmouth mixed with largemouth stacked up. Several wolf packs of smallies attacked our Slamming Shads….now this is getting fun! We caught several bronzebacks before the school spooked. I did manage to catch couple more on a topwater lure.

TIP: when you have a school of small fish you can bet the bigger fish are under the smaller fish. So we picked up a Carolina Rig and started fishing deeper on the point. Mark caught a nice 2.5# largemouth on a Team 2K craw and I caught a nice plump smallie on a Slammin sink worm.

We caught a lot of fish but no bragging size. Maybe next trip ??? I can’t wait !

Keystone Power Dam, Armstrong County Pennsylvania is a beautiful gem of a lake. It is a restricted horsepower lake to 9.9hp. It has nice weed beds, sunkin islands, and fallen trees; all fish attracting spots.

So next time you want to fish a different lake, try Keystone Power Dam and check out Team 2K’s website and products.

WARNING !! if you ever meet these guys, your ribs are in for some serious pain.

Sharp Hooks……Scott

Chautauqua Lake, NY Big Smallmouth and MONSTER Musky

Brent Postal — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:07:19 +0000

Chautauqua Lake, New York….WOW, what a fantastic lake !
My friend Bob Green invited the Centre Sportsman crew ( Host Scott Laukhuff and Producer Dave Welch)to fish and film a show on Chautauqua Lake. Bob is a fellow Berkley Ambassador (like myself) and guides and lives on Chautauqua Lake. He knows the lake well and it didn’t take us long to start catching fish. We wanted to film a smallmouth show.
Chautauqua Lake is noted as the “Musky Lake”, but boy was I surprised to see the size of the muskies.
I was so surprised to see the size of this one musky we spotted that i am ignoring the big smallmouth we caught on topwater,….not easy for me ignoring big smallmouth! We were drifting and casting topwater lures in a bay in the upper end of the lake ….when Bob said” look at that big carp”……Dave yelled ” that’s no carp…. but a BIG MUSKY !” I looked down too and WOW !!!! This fresh water barracuda was the biggest musky I ever saw. The fish was well over 55″s and maybe closer to 60″s, a world class musky for sure. She just slowly swam away. Then after we all recovered from the excitement from that fish, we spotted another big musky…this one wasn’t as long, but still a trophy size musky. I am truly amazed about the quantity and quality of the musky in Chautauqua Lake, that we are planning another trip, just to target trophy musky. I am hoping to catch that huge musky for the show. Now that will make my day!

Now back to the smallmouth……..
The day started out a bit slow but Bob soon put us on fish. We caught some smallies shallow but they were on the small side. We moved a little deeper ( 10ft) and the lake was like glass, so I tied on a spook topwater lure and soon had 4-5 # smallies smashing the spook. They would come up and crush the topwater lure and tail dance across the lake…….”I’m in heaven when this happens” ! All I can say is WOW what a fishing trip and ” thanks to Bob Green”
If you want the chance to catch big smallies or a musky, give my friend Bob Green a call.
Chautauqua Lake Angling Adventures, 716-640-3389
Rip some lips on Chautauqua Lake! Scott

A trip to Chautauqua Lake!

Brent Postal — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:05:19 +0000

Hey all!

Last weekend, we had a great road trip that took us to Chautauqua Lake. If you’ve never been to Chautauqua, then you’re missing out. It really is a beautiful lake, not to mention home to many big fish!

We were fishing with our friend, Bob Green. Bob is a licensed NY State guide, and if you’re looking for someone who knows Chautauqua Lake, then Bob would be your guy.

We shot some footage with Bob last October, and decided to try it again this spring- when we wouldn’t have to wear face shields while traveling down the lake…..you see it starts to get cold up there in late October.

This turned out to be a great trip with beautiful weather. Scott and Bob caught caught a bunch of bass, both smallmouth and large mouth, and a few were big ones! Chautauqua Lake is also known for it’s big muskie. Yeah, big muskie, indeed. While drifting over a weed bed bed, I hear Bob exclaim, “Would you look at the size of that carp!” After hearing this, I pulled my eye out of the camera for a second to look at this carp. What I saw was no carp! What I did see instead, was a gigantic muskie hovering just above the weed bed, about a foot and a half under the surface- I could have reached down and touched it! It was almost directly under the boat! This muskie was in the 55 inch range, and thick like a submarine This was a big, big muskie! Moments later, we saw a 40 inch plus muskie swim by! Two big muskie, minutes apart. Now, muskies are not in season yet, so this was a looking only experience, but you can bet that we are going to plan another trip to Chautauqua Lake later in the season!

Did I mention that the fishing was good too!!?? Scott and Bob had a great day on the water. There were some big smallnouth caught in front of the camera that day! There will be a good episode to come from this trip.

I forgot to mention…ooops. On this trip, we were using our prototype smallmouth/largemouth lure kit. Scott has been working on this for a while now, and thinks he’s got all the right pieces together for it. It will be for sale soon! Email us if you are interested in one!

Dave Welch,

Executive Producer