BETHEL ISLAND, Calif. (Sept. 30, 2019) – The Sacramento State University duo of Ilya Guryanov of West Sacramento and Will Karnthong, of Antioch, California, won the College Fishing tournament on the California Delta with a five-bass limit weighing 15 pounds, 7 ounces. The victory earned the Hornets’ bass club $2,000 and a slot in the 2020 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
“I’m a local, so I’ve spent a lot of time on the Delta and we definitely put in our practice time for this one,” said Karnthong, a freshman majoring in construction management. “We mainly stayed around the Central Delta – I had 10 to 15 spots where I knew we could catch fish. The name of the game for us was just covering a lot of water, then slowing down in the high-percentage areas.”
“We tried our best to find the big fish punching the grass – and we caught six – but those were all little guys,” said Guryanov, a sophomore majoring in nursing. “Our big fish came on a ChatterBait. We caught around 20 fish, but it was a slow day and we had to just grind it out.”
The duo’s main bait of choice was a green-pumpkin-colored Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait Jack Hammer – Karnthong with a Z-Man Super Shad trailer and Guryanov with a Yamamoto Zeko trailer. They used a Big Texan-colored Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver when punching.
“Being a local was a huge advantage for us, because we had more water to fish,” Karnthong went on to say. “A lot of teams were covering water and running and gunning, but I had pre-fished a lot and was able to go from spot to spot knowing that the fish were there, instead of looking for them.”
The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2020 College Fishing National Championship are:
1st: Sacramento State University – Ilya Guryanov, West Sacramento, Calif., and Will Karnthong, Antioch, Calif., five bass, 15-7, $2,000
2nd: Sacramento State University – Aaron Nguyen, Discovery Bay, Calif., and Christopher Orgon, Sacramento, Calif., five bass, 13-2, $1,000
3rd: New Mexico State University – Ty Faulconer, Santa Clarita, Calif., and Daylon Smith, Frazier Park, Calif., five bass, 12-4, $900
4th: Chico State University – Tyler Bounds, Chico, Calif., and Miles Kaneko, Berkeley, Calif., five bass, 11-12, $700
5th: Oregon State University – Biagio Capp, Discovery Bay, Calif., and Thomas Robinson, Blythe, Calif., five bass, 10-6, $750
6th: University of California-Merced – Kalib Caples, Sebastopol, Calif., and Herbie LeBlanc, Merced, Calif., five bass, 10-4
7th: Washington State University – Madden Tobeck, Eatonville, Wash., and Nathan Baespflug, Sumner, Wash., five bass, 10-2
8th: Chico State University – Joshua Cutler, Hollister, Calif., and Chad Sweitzer, Sonora, Calif., five bass, 10-1
9th: California State University-East Bay – Yuan Liu, Fremont, Calif., and Zane Kazaka, Clearlake, Calif., five bass, 9-9
10th: Simpson University – Ryan Beaty, Martinez, Calif., and Nathan Phillips, Kelseyville, Calif., five bass, 9-5