Knotted up on Norman
Virginia Tech and Fairmont State share day-one lead with 9 pounds, 7 ounces
DAVIDSON, N.C. – With bluebird skies and temperatures in the mid-60s, day one of the National Guard FLW College Fishing Northern Regional Championship on Lake Norman was autumn fishing at its finest. But nobody relayed that message to the bass. Only three of the 20 teams competing caught a six-bass limit, and two of those limits were caught by Virginia Tech teams.
While Virginia Tech’s Charlie Machek and Scott Wiley weighed in a leading 9-7, they were joined at the top of the leaderboard by Fairmont State University anglers Wil Dieffenbauch and Brent Dodrill. While Fairmont State caught all spotted bass, Virginia Tech caught two largemouths and four spots.
“The goal was 10 pounds this morning, and we’re right there,” said Machek, a senior majoring in building 
construction. “I think we have found our money spot. We caught four of our fish off of one dock. But the fish came at different times during the day, so we know it’s replenishing.”
“The key for us is to conserve fish,” added Wiley, a senior in landscape architecture. “In practice this is exactly what we did. Now we’ve got to do it for two more days.”
In addition to skipping docks, Machek and Wiley are fishing inconspicuous spots.
“I had a full, continuous week of practice before the tournament, and I pretty much ran the whole lake,” said Machek. “We’re not fishing a pattern; we’re fishing specific spots. Most of those are in the mid-depth range.”
Machek and Wiley created the Virginia Tech bass fishing club. And with 20 members and three teams currently in the top five, it’s quite the organization.
“We started this club four years ago, so this is our last hurrah.”
Fairmont confident
Like Machek and Wiley, the team of Dieffenbauch and Dodrill started the Fairmont State University club. 
Dieffenbauch was the initiator, and he met Dodrill shortly after at a meeting held in the school’s library.
Their first time fishing together was the Northern Regional qualifier on the Potomac River. In that event, the team placed first by an ounce and also qualified for the regional at hand. Today was only their second time fishing together, and once again the results were impressive.
“We covered a lot of water today,” said Dieffenbauch, a sophomore majoring in civil engineering. “Overall it was about average – we’ve had better days. We struggled, but every fish we hooked we got into the boat. With 10 minutes left, we caught our last keeper.”
Dodrill, a sophomore majoring in occupational safety, said the team fished both shallow and deep. They, too, found some sweet spots during the unofficial prepractice period.
“I’ve been coming down the last three Saturdays for practice,” said Dieffenbauch. “It has paid off so far. We just want to make it to Monday – we’ll worry about winning then.”
Hokies third
The Virginia Tech team of Andrew Blevins and Carson Rejzer was the third and final team to manage a six-bass limit.
“We found some bait in the back of a pocket during practice, but they weren’t there today,” said Blevins. “We switched it up and fished some brush piles instead.”
The end result was a day-one weight of 8 pounds, 14 ounces.
SUNY Plattsburgh fourth
State University of New York College at Plattsburgh teammates Mitchell Davis and Scott Harrington finished in fourth place after day one with three bass weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces.
“We did all we could – we fished hard and came up with three,” said Davis, who calls Lake Champlain home.
One of those was a chunky largemouth – one of the better fish of the day.
Fifth also belongs to Virginia Tech
They didn’t manage a limit like the two other Hokie teams, but Caleb Brown and Ryan Slate still managed enough weight to make the top five after day one. Together they caught four bass weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces.
“We kept doing our thing – just stuck with it,” said Brown, who said onstage he used plastic worms and “whatnot.”
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 teams at the Northern Regional Championship:
6th: Ben Dziwulski and Kevin Beverley of North Carolina State University, 6-2
7th: Justin Brouillard and Ben Cayer of Vermont Technical College, 5-10
8th: Will White and Kolby Stockton of North Carolina State University, 5-5
9th: Casey Johnson and Chris Wood of North Carolina State University, 4-13
9th: Troy Eikenberry and Adrian Avena of Chestnut Hill College, 4-13
Day two of the National Guard FLW College Fishing Northern Regional Championship continues Sunday. Anglers will take off from Blythe Landing in Huntersville at 7 a.m. The weigh-in will begin at 4 p.m. at Davidson College.