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We here at Canadian Collegiate Bass Anglers Federation would like to thank Todd Currie for designing our new “CCBAF” Federation logo.  After seeing Todd’s artwork for boat wraps, logos and jerseys, I knew it was a safe bet these new logos would look sweet.

Surely, the logo will look great on our new State Apparel Team Jerseys!

Thank You Todd!

After a hard fought day on Lake Scugog, there was one boat who had clearly figured it out. Congratulations to Mike Clark for bringing in the largest limit of the day. After Mike and his co-angler, Evan Hetherington sat on one spot all day, their patients and persistence most definitely paid off by both of them landing limits. That one spot rewarded Mike with his first Canadian Collegiate Team title, and Evan with his second consecutive team title. Both anglers were very pleased.

Not to be out done was second place finisher Matthew Heayn. Despite being a co-angler, had control of the Scugog Situation, because of the good amount of time he spent prefishing. Matt had managed to find, track and catch the elusive smallmouth bass. This was Matthews first year as a Collegiate Bass Angler, and he managed to capture a Canadian Collegiate Team spot.

Rounding out the team is Matt Pezzetta, who is currently the Canadian Collegiate Bass Anglers president. With a last minute push for fish, going back over docks where fish were not committing to the bait earlier in the day, Matt thad managed to throw a small limit together. To his surprise, a limit would go a long way that day on Scugog.

Congrats To All Who Stuck Out That Awful Day on the ‘Gog.

Click HERE To See The Results

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of communication on the board since we departed for Texas to compete in the Boat US Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship on Lake Lewisville. As promised before I left – here is a recap of everything Jeremy Metzger and I experienced travel/tournament/fishing wise over the 8 days in northern Texas.

If you are just following now – please check out a page back in this section of the forum for a better description of the amazing opportunity that presented itself after we qualified for this tournament as part of the Canadian Collegiate Bass Championships last year.

Pre-Tournament/Travel:
Over the course of the winter (when I wasn’t busy with school work…) I tried to find as much information about the lake as possible. With the little info I found online/through speaking to a few locals and the same common theme that the lake fishes tough, I started to pack my gear as soon as I had finished exams. I knew that in past years it’s taken 15-20lbs a day to win but at the same time there were a ton of teams that didn’t weigh a fish…meaning there weren’t a load of keepers around.
Jeremy and I left a week before the first tournament day and thankfully for Jeremy’s dad (who enjoys driving long distances) we drove straight to Texas in one shot – only stopping for gas/food along the way. This allowed us to get to our hotel with a few days before the two days of prefish began.

Leading Up To Pre-fish:
As soon as we had unpacked we made a trip to the Bass Pro Shops in Grapevine, Tx. We were able to get a Navionics chip for the southern lakes along with our licenses within the first few hours of being there. Our goal for the next three days was to fish a few lakes nearby in hopes of getting a feel for the southern lakes. To make a long story short, our first two days on Grapevine Lake left us with half a dozen fish between 10 and 14” – which didn’t help our confidence much. Thankfully for us, there was a local club tournament weighing-in at the parking lot and the weights were really low. 10lbs won it (with a 4lb kicker) and 5th place was only 5lbs…needless to say Jeremy and I felt a lot better about how we did for having only fished the lake twice. The water on the lake was very stained – likely 2-5” visibility and there are barely any weeds around as its all different types of structure. After running the lake for two days followed by thunderstorms keeping us off the lake on the third day – we were ready to get on Lewisville with a few things in mind after fishing Grapevine.

Prefish (Two Days)
After researching the winner’s patterns from previous years, we had a rough game plan of what we could expect to produce going into prefish. Past winners either fished the thousands of docks/boat houses in the marina’s, deep Carolina rigged offshore structure or flip the barrier-like tires that protect the marina’s from winds/wake. While keeping our options open, we planned to run to as many marinas as possible on the first day of prefish and to find docks in a range of styles/depths with hopes of patterning the ‘good’ docks. It was a rude awakening as we didn’t find a dock in less than 12 feet of water which was a lot different than at home. The docks we located fish on were floating docks ranging from 19-26 feet with fish suspended 2-3 feet below them and within the hydraulic lifts. After running all over the lake locating docks, we didn’t have much to show for it and only had a gut feeling of what we should fish come tournament day.

The second day of prefish we planned to find some sort of shallow topwater bite in the morning as there were plenty of shad busting the surface but only gar/carp were seen in the shallows. We quickly abandoned the topwater bite as the wind began to blow a great deal and we resorted to throwing shallow crankbaits/spinnerbaits in the shallows. Mid-day we began trying out some of the submerged bushes that were overhanging from shore in hopes of finding some trees that would produce that ‘big bite’. Jeremy and I got a few hits but once again nothing that would help once competition began.300×225.jpg” alt=”" title=”Myself, Jeremy and Matt at Banquet ” width=”300″ height=”225″ class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-138″ />

Off-the-water Events
After the first day of pre-fish we had a College night at Cabela’s. Each team was given a $100 gift card to help them start their shopping. Pro’s such as Jeff Kriet and Mike McClelland were on hand which really neat and it was great getting to meet/talk to them. Midway through the shopping – a ton of sounds/lights went off and we were warned that a tornado was 3 miles down the highway which meant we had to go to a special hallway. While sitting there for 45 minutess, we spent our time talking to pro Michael Murphy who happened to be on hand. Being from Indiana, he definitely eased the Canadian’s nerves as tornadoes aren’t an everyday thing for us.

Following the second day of prefish there was a banquet/sponsor night. There were 10-20 sponsors on hand giving out free stuff to all the anglers. We loaded up Trokar weigh-in bags as much as we could with freebies such as Onyx Inflatable lifejackets with the tournament logo, Frog Toggs rainsuits with the tournament logo, Trokar hooks, and many other baits/line/clothing/giftcards. I’ve never received so much fishing stuff for free and the night had just begun. Thanks again to all those sponsors for not only making an event like this possible but for giving us (the anglers) a bunch of stuff to take home. After a great dinner, we had Hank Parker speak followed by Michael Murphy which just topped the evening. Their stories were unbelievable and meeting them was a great experience.

As the banquet concluded rules were addressed and blast off numbers were distributed for both days. Time to fish!

Day One
Sneaky Pete’s (the marina/restaurant in which the weigh-in was held at) provided free breakfast starting at 5:30AM. There was also a long table with snacks for the competition day plus dinner once you got off the water. As Jeremy and I were eating breakfast we were approached by the tournament director and were asked if we were ‘ok’ with having a camera guy follow us at blast off. He would then jump in once we reached our first spot and get attempt to get some TV footage. Without even considering what each other thought, we both quickly said yes and immediately got set up with our “mics”. If the field of 150 boats didn’t have the adrenaline flowing enough – the cameraman alongside us certainly made sure it was. The American National Anthem along with a prayer all seemed to be a blur as we were so anxious to get to our first set of docks. We hit our first spot with the cameraman in boat and Jeremy began skipping docks with a senko while I tried to find some roaming fish (between 3-8 feet) with a mix of reaction baits. After a few minutes, Jeremy set into a keep-looking fish and within no time it was in the net. Unfortunately it measured 13.75” and was just shy of the 14” slot size – that hurt, but would make great TV footage. We fished the remaining isolated docks on the bank we were on and got one more non-keeper on film but then decided to hit some new water. That’s where things slowed down – the cameraman was gone and we were finally able to focus and get in the zone.

By this time in the day we could either run and fish some windblown points and try and scrounge a limit of spotted bass OR we could make a run to our best marina and fish a ton of docks. We decided to give a productive stretch of shoreline a shot but didn’t wish to waste much time on it. After sorting through 5-6 non keepers, I finally landed a fish that was just over 12” – but wanted verification that it was indeed a spotted bass since I had never landed one before. (We eventually got the ‘ok’ from tournament director Wade Middleton). With the little success we had in practice we decided to abandon the spotted bass and to make the run in hopes of landing a few good dock fish. Well…2-3 hours passed without a thing. But as we learned in practice there was no real rhyme or rhythm with these docks – they were tough to pattern. The most productive we had been in prefish was when we simply stayed focused and fished dock after dock for the entire day. Just before 1PM I heard the sweet sound of tension with braid and turned to see Jeremy with a fish. “It’s a good one” he said, and I quickly made sure it was in the net. This was by far the biggest fish we had seen on this lake – a bit over 2lbs we assumed. With that fish in the well, we felt a lot better about our day. Without another bite in the same marina we headed back to weigh-in with our two fish which weighed a whopping 3.02lbs. This weight put us in 85th place out of the field of 150 boats. We were happy to get by, but by no means satisfied as we weren’t really on the fish needed to make a run up the leaderboard. The experience of getting to weigh the fish on stage, while getting to say a few words in the ‘mic’ was awesome – and the support the fans gave us (after it was mentioned where we came from) made that 3 pound bag a lot heavier in our minds.

That night we went over the maps a few times in hopes of finding some better looking water and thought we might be able to combine that with our first day’s water and put together a bag – one fish at a time. Only time would tell…The fishing was indeed tough as only 21 boats brought in a limit after the first day.

Day Two
After a short night’s sleep we launched just before 6:15AM and headed to Sneaky Pete’s Marina for blast-off. We ran to another marina that we had locateded in practice that had gigantic tires which acted as a wind-barrier. There were three ways to effectively fish these as fish were suspended 2-4 feet underneath them. You could either parallel them with a fast moving bait like a crank/spinnerbait, punch the middle section of the tire with a flippin stick or to pitch to the opening within them. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get much going there as the high winds made it difficult to properly fish them. As we were pulling off the tires we got into a big school of hybrid bass but we didn’t waste our time catching those after we got a few to the boat.

With still a long time left in our day, we decided to run the same water as the previous day as we thought that the entire field would struggle due to the weather. If we could boat what we did the previous day, we would make a mid-pack finish – which is what we were shooting for after day one. We make the run to our spot loaded with smaller spotted bass and soon realized that there were 2 footers beating up the shoreline and the water was the dirtiest we had seen on the lake. After a few casts and not a lot of fishable water available we decided to get to our best marina – stay there, and hope to get a bite similar to our bigger fish of day one. As soon as we got to our docks we realized that other teams were all over them too as they were protected from the wind – 5 to be exact. The neat thing was out of the main 2-3 spots we fished, Alton Jones Jr. (in his Dad’s fully wrapped boat) shared those locations with us. This was definitely a confidence booster on “our water” but made for a much tougher bite. Sadly we weren’t able to boat a keeper that day and didn’t make it back to the main stage to weigh in any fish.

With the zero we finished 107th out of the 150 teams that were set to compete. Not a bad finish by any means but 4 days of fishing in high temperatures/winds with 3lbs to show for it was not what we were used to – but we learned a ton and are better anglers because of it.

Bait selection for prefish was all over the place – I had 10 rods with me and junk fished the majority of the time. Mini-jigs, swimbaits on a Scrounger, Senkos, shakey heads, square billed cranks, topwaters and a few compact plastics accounted for the fish that I caught. Come tournament day – I had a spinnerbait, buzzbait, square bill, senko, swimbaits on a Scrounger and a t-rigged creature bait rigged and ready to go.

I can’t begin to explain how much the support and the opportunity in general means to me – and I’m sure for Jeremy as well. I’d like to thank Rick Weatherill and the CBAF for their fundraising efforts and to Matt Pezzetta for making qualification for an event such as this happen. Although the fishing was tough, I have never learned so much in such a short amount of time and whenever I see water as stained as it was there back in Ontario – I might even be able to catch a fish…

A big thank you goes out to Mark Kulik, Theo Cheng and Patrick/Helen Chow who all were happy to help me out over the winter. This allowed me to get my hands on some awesome baits that I was confident other competitors wouldn’t be throwing on Lewisville and to put some fish in the boat.

Sorry for the long recap – hope it was worth your time!

Thanks,

Evan Hetherington

On August 15th 2010, The Canadian Fishing Industry was changed forever. Lake Eugenia, in Flesherton, Ontario hosted the first inter-collegiate bass fishing tournament in Canadian history. Eugenia ended up to be a great host lake as it provided a diverse fishery, while still being manageable due to its size and central location.

The inaugural event had seven teams of students competing; with teams ranging in locations from London to as far as Lindsay. The highest number of competitors came from Sir Sandford Fleming College, and as a result they were the favourites to take home the title. The event featured such collegiate competitors as Ben Leger, who is already quite successful in Renegade Bass series, to David MacInnis, a great up-and-coming angler who everyone should be worried about. Undoubtedly this field was going to be challenging, and make an exciting weigh-in.

The support from the Canadian Bass Anglers Federation is nothing that should be ignored. The organization consists of a great group of people who really care about all aspects of the sport. Volunteers included individuals such as CBAF president, Rick Weatherill and Melanie Frost of Frostbite Tackle and Charters. Without a doubt this event could not have happened without them and their support.

Most teams had an unproductive pre-fish due to the harsh storm front that passed through the days before the tournament. Since most participants had not fished this body of water before, it was almost necessary to stick it out to find structure that would hold fish.

As always, time on the water and persistence paid off for Fleming College’s team of Jeremy Metzger and Jim Pezzetta as they weighed in just under 16 lbs landing them in 1st place. Close behind was Rick Weatherill and Evan Hetherington in 2nd place with a quality bag of smallmouth. With these standings, the CBAF Canadian Collegiate Fishing team will consist of boater Jeremy Metzger and co-angler Evan Hetherington for the upcoming Boat U.S. Collegiate Bass National Championships in Lewisville, Texas next May.

The top school with over a 13 lbs average is the University of Western Ontario, capturing them the first school to go home with the award. To see fill results, CLICK HERE

With details getting stamped out for next year’s event, it promises to be bigger and better than anyone could have expected, here in Canada.