BASS Classic action & more

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Cole Sands and Bailey Fain of Bryan College got ahead of Sunday’s unfavorable weather conditions, sacked up a five-bass limit that weighed 13 pounds, 11 ounces and won the Carhartt Bassmaster College Classic on Watts Bar Lake. The event was held in conjunction with the Bassmaster Classic this weekend.

Congratulations to University of Louisiana-Monroe anglers Tyler Craig and Spencer Lambert for finishing seventh in the event and landing big bass of the event. They were invited to fish at the Bassmaster Classic in Knoxville after winning the Team of the Year title last season.

It’s just a great honor to even make the tournament, much less the top ten! I can’t pass up a chance to encourage area colleges to do more for these fishing teams. Most of them are pretty much on their own and that’s a shame, considering how much money is poured into college athletics events that don’t garner near this much positive attention.

Oh, yes, that other tournament . . .

For decades, it seemed almost impossible for an angler to win the Bassmaster Classic in his home state.

Now it’s happened four times in six years.

Tennessee pro Ott DeFoe, who makes his home in Knoxville, caught five bass Sunday from the Tennessee River that weighed 18 pounds, 14 ounces to win the Super Bowl of Bass Fishing and the $300,000 prize that goes with the iconic trophy.

His three-day total weight of 49-3 helped him slip past second-place angler Jacob Wheeler before a raucous home crowd at the University of Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena.

The world-championship bass tournament drew a record-total attendance of 153,809 to tournament venues, including daily weigh-ins in Thompson-Boling Arena, the Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo show.

“This is a dream come true — a dream I’ve had since I was a 9-year-old kid,” said DeFoe, who now has six career victories with B.A.S.S. “When we came over here and did the walk-through the day before the tournament, I actually imagined hearing my name after the words ‘Bassmaster Classic champion.’

WAIT, THERE’S MORE . . .

Congratulations to Huff McIntosh and and Scott McCleland for getting it done for Louisiana Tech today in the Collegiate State Championship on Toledo Bend!

They won First Place and a trip to the National Championships!!