Wonder Boys Win Out

Arkansas Tech had trouble catching large-mouth bass in the first two days of the College Smash-Mouth Bass Championship, but Kevin Koone and Dylan Hawkins managed to stay in contention, and the bites eventually went their way.

The Wonder Boys bagged five large-mouth keepers weighing 14.6 pounds to win College Bass Fishing's National Championship^TM on Cane Creek in Star City, Ark., on Tuesday. Anchoring the full bag of fish was a big bass that weighed 4.7 pounds.

"Everything just went right for us today," Koone said. "We have been pretty fortunate for the entire tournament. We didn't lose a keeper fish all week long."

Tech qualified fourth with a full bag of spotted bass worth 7 pounds on Sunday and four more spotted plus one large-mouth bass worth 7.8 pounds on Monday. It wasn't their goal to catch spotted bass in the first two days, but their trouble with the large-mouth forced them to move to a Plan B.

"We tried to stay in the harbor [at Pine Bluff], but we couldn't get anything to bite," Koone said. "We ended up moving to the river and catching a bunch of spotted bass underneath bridges and a couple other areas. We ended up going after spotted bass both days, and we were really disappointed with the way things were going."

There's nothing like a full sack of large-mouth bass and a national championship to shake off a little disappointment.

"I'm just kind of overwhelmed right now," Hawkins said. "This has been a great experience, and it feels good to be the national champion."

Had the weights not been zeroed after qualifying, Tech would have entered the finals 10.6 pounds behind first place, which might have been insurmountable.

"We were glad to see it zeroed," Hawkins said. "It got everyone out on new water and made it an even playing field. It put us in a position where we knew we didn't have to catch a miracle bag to put us in a position to win. It took the pressure off."

Eastern Kentucky University entered the finals as the top qualifier, including a 15.8 pound bag on Sunday, but the championship just wasn't meant to be. Drew Sadler and Richard Cobb lost a couple big fish early in the day, and it went downhill from there.

"I just didn't have a good feeling on the water today," Sadler said. "Sometimes I get to a spot and I just know that I am going to catch a fish. I never got that feeling today. We were frustrated all day because we spent half of our time trying to rock our boat off stumps that we were stuck on."

The Colonels only caught two keepers worth 2.3 pounds in the finals and finished in fourth. Both Sadler and Cobb are only juniors, and they are already looking forward to coming back next year.

"To win a tournament, you have to fish perfectly," Cobb said. "This is part of the learning experience. You run into different things and you just have to adjust. If you're going to make it on the next level then you have to be versatile."

Southern Illinois came in second and was the only other team to catch a full load of fish in the finals, but it fell 5.2 pounds short of first place. St. Ambrose took third with 2.3 pounds and Murray State came in fifth with 1.6 pounds. All the students said it was tough to change locations in the middle of a tournament.

The anglers spent their first two days fishing the Arkansas River in Pine Bluff and only had 30 minutes to examine the new lake before they went out and started fishing. EKU said the new setting definitely set them back, and even Koone said the new water was a challenge that he had never faced before.

"This type of water really didn't fit my style," Koone said. "I'm a clear-water fisherman, so this isn't anything like what I'm used to fishing. But we were real pleased with how we fished today."