GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. – Having no preconceived notions of what to expect from Kentucky Lake proved to be a good thing for the Northwest Missouri State University team of Andrew Nordbye and Adam Almontadi in the FLW College Fishing Open on Kentucky Lake. The two fished for a week here in preparation for the tournament and applied what they learned during that short window to take the lead in the tournament’s opening round with a five-fish limit that totaled 25 pounds, 2 ounces.

Their performance on day one gave them a cushion of more than 2 pounds ahead of the University of Kentucky’s Ryan Collins and Hunter Fulcher (22-14). The Wildcats found themselves in a top-five scrum with the University of Alabama’s Ethan Flack and Konnor Kennedy (22-9), Clemson University’s Jacob Reome and Matthew Garvin (22-5) and the University of Arkansas System-Fayetteville’s Zachary Pickle and Drew Porto.

The event’s top 10 teams will qualify for the 2016 FLW College Fishing National Championship, and the winning squad gets a Ranger Z117 with a 90-hp outboard. The final weigh-in begins at 3 p.m. CDT Saturday at Moor’s Resort & Marina.

“We fished three areas today and threw the same bait the whole time,” says Almontadi. “We figured out what we were going to do in practice, and it pretty well worked out the way we hoped. We also threw the same bait all day. We never had another rod on the deck except the one with what we were using.”

Not surprisingly, the Missourians plan to fish the same mid-lake areas again tomorrow. The weather is expected to be warmer with plenty of sunshine in the second and final round, but Nordbye says their pattern isn’t dependent on the weather, indicating they might be fishing deeper water.

“I don’t think we burned through our fish, and I feel good about tomorrow [Saturday],” adds Nordbye. “We hit our best spot pretty hard, but we didn’t touch two of our other spots.”

The two culled 15 times in the tournament’s opening round and caught their fish throughout the day.

Details of the rest of the top five teams to follow.

Top 10

1: Andrew Nordbye & Adam Almohtadi – Northwest Missouri State University – 25-2 (5)

2: Hunter Fulcher & Ryan Collins – University of Kentucky – 22-14 (5)

3: Konnor Kennedy & Ethan Flack – University of Alabama – 22-9 (5)

4: Jacob Reome & Matthew Garvin – Clemson University – 22- 5 (5)

5: Zachary Pickle & Drew Porto – University of Arkansas System-Fayetteville – 21-13 (5)

6: Grant Rutter & Kristopher Queen – Bethel University – 21-13 (5)

7: Dalton Wesley & Zach Hartnagel – SIU-Edwardsville – 21-7 (5)

8: Michael Harlin & Christian Ponzetti – University of Missouri – 21-3 (5)

9: Qiurun Chen & Luke Stoner – University of Illinois – 21-1 (5)

10: Joseph Huggins & Ty Dyer – Bethel University – 20-11 (5)

Click here for complete results.