SHREVEPORT, La. (May 30, 2018) – The University of Louisiana-Monroe team of Thomas Soileau and Hunter Freeman, both of Monroe, Louisiana, grabbed the early lead Wednesday after Day One of the 2018 FLW College Fishing National Championship tournament on the Red River. The Warhawk duo brought a five-bass limit to the scale weighing 14 pounds, 7 ounces, giving them a 12-ounce cushion over the second place team of Charlie DeShazer and Jackson Ebbers from the University of Nebraska.
“We locked down to Pool No. 3 to catch our fish today,” said Freeman, a junior majoring in business administration. “We really didn’t know what to expect. We came here three weeks ago to pre-practice and found a few areas that we felt could produce, but it’s much warmer now. The water is 95 degrees and it’s 2½ feet deep, so we backed up a little bit – and we found them.”
“We’re fishing a little deeper, offshore,” said Soileau, a recent criminal justice graduate. “Most of our bites came around 8-feet deep. We hit three or four spots, and caught one big fish off of each one. It happened pretty quickly.”
The duo said they stopped fishing their main areas around 10:30 a.m. and spent the rest of the day practicing and looking for new water. They managed 8 or 9 keepers throughout the day, both fishing the same unnamed crankbait, although different colors.
“With having to manage the locks and everything, it takes almost two hours to get to our spots,” Soileau said. “It really takes up a lot of our fishing time, so every cast counts.”
“One of our spots should be replenishing. With the hot conditions and a little bit of wind it’s setting up perfectly,” Freeman said. “We cut out a little early today and left them biting. Some other teams are fishing around us, but we’re doing something no one else is doing. Our plan is to do the same thing tomorrow and hope they’re still there.”
The National Champions will be crowned on Friday based on the cumulative three-day weight total. The winning team will then advance to compete in a one-day fish-off on Saturday against each other on an undisclosed local fishery, which will be revealed at Friday’s weigh-in. The two anglers will weigh in Saturday at 3:25 p.m. prior to the final weigh in of the Bass Fishing League (BFL) All-American championship at Cross Lake. The winner will receive entry into the 2018 Forrest Wood Cup, held August 10-12 on Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
The top 10 teams after Day One on the Red River are:
1st: University of Louisiana-Monroe – Thomas Soileau and Hunter Freeman, both of Monroe, La., five bass, 14-7
2nd: University of Nebraska – Jackson Ebbers, Cambridge, Neb., and Charlie DeShazer, Fremont, Neb., five bass, 13-11
3rd: Kennesaw State University – Payton Morgan, Woodstock, Ga., and Logan Smith, Ball Ground, Ga., five bass, 12-7
4th: Tusculum College – Nick Hatfield, Chuckey, Tenn., and Corey Neece, Bristol, Tenn., five bass, 12-1
5th: Northwestern State University – Hunter Malmay, Zwolle, La., and Robert Jones, Minden, La., five bass, 11-14
6th: California State University-Long Beach – Cole Thomas, Lakewood, Calif., and Via Thao, Long Beach, Calif., five bass, 11-6
7th: Clemson University – Garrett Addis, Central, S.C., and Aaron Banquer-Glenn, Bend, Ore., five bass, 10-15
8th: Kansas State University – Tyler Nekolny, Coral Springs, Fla., and Hunter Whiteley, Willard, Mo., five bass, 10-12
9th: University of North Alabama – Triston Crowder, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., and Lake Blasingame, Killen Ala., five bass, 10-10
10th: Slippery Rock University – Ryan Kozlowski, Cranberry Township, Pa., and Nathan Quince, Imperial, Pa., five bass, 10-8
Overall there were 503 bass weighing 834 pounds, 4 ounces caught by 149 college teams Wednesday. The catch included 60 five-bass limits.