The College Bass National Championship, which begins Thursday at 7 a.m., will feature 43 collegiate teams seeking to dethrone Chris Wood, a senior in textile technology, and Will White, a senior in fisheries and wildlife science, the defending national champions. They will fish for two days with a five-fish limit of largemouth and spotted bass. The weights will then be zeroed and the top five teams will advance to Saturday’s final round.
The tournament begins in the Riverview Park in North Little Rock, Ark.
Wood and White returned earlier this week to practice in the same waters that produced a winning haul for them a year ago only to find that their baits weren’t working and the fish weren’t biting.
“Conditions have changed a lot,” Wood said. “We’ve fished a lot of the same areas we fished last year and they’re not there. There are a lot of guys who are having trouble catching fish, period. We had to go to a bunch of new stuff.”
In addition, recent floods in Oklahoma will likely cause water levels in Little Rock to rise this weekend, which could create disruptions in the tournament’s location. Wood and White fished the same body of water all three days in 2009 and have only practiced there this week, but Wood said there’s a ‘definite possibility’ they could fish on a different lake the second day and yet another on Saturday, if they advance.
It’s a tense situation for any competitor, and will be made more stressful by the fact that they will be filmed the entire time. As returning champions, Wood and White will have a camera boat following them throughout the first day. ESPNU will broadcast the footage as part of their coverage in late July or August.
“They might have to edit some parts out,” Wood said.
Despite these concerns, White said they’re somewhat calmed by the fact that their pre-fishing has gone better than last year’s.
“Last year, we had a terrible practice,” White said. “We just ended up being stubborn in one area that we really thought fish were in, but we couldn’t get them to bite. We stayed there and pounded them until we made them bite. This year, we’ve actually been able to catch fish in practice, but it’s been in a lot of different areas.”
White said it was too early to tell whether this was a good sign.
“It could end up being good for us, but it could end up being bad because we can’t get one pattern,” White said. “Everything could change, or just completely turn on for us.”
Bringing home consecutive titles will be tricky, but as representatives of one of the largest and winningest collegiate bass fishing teams in the country, White says the good times will continue to roll for the BassPack.
“We’ve got sponsors calling us every day. We’re getting televised monthly,” White said. “Everything is going as good as it could be for BassPack.”
Wood said they’re keeping their expectations reasonable.
“Winning it again would be awesome, but just making the top five again would be really good,” Wood said. “It would show that we’re still a competitive fishing team.”
