The bass in Kentucky and Barkley Lakes were in prespawn mode for the second annual FLW College Fishing Open. With a cold front and low water thrown into the mix, the bites didn't come easy. These are the baits that got the job done.
1. Zach Hartnagel and Dalton Wesley of SIU-Edwardsville cast a homemade 1/4-ounce shaky head with a black and blue Strike King Rodent.
2. The Bethel University team of Carter McNeil and Cole Floyd used a Strike King Red Eye Shad. They called it bone-colored because the baits had caught so many fish there wasn't any paint left on 'em.
3. Colt Benedict and Trent Newman of Dallas Baptist University used a combination of finesse and power. The power bait was a Basstrix Paddle Tail Swimbait on a ChatterBait head and their finesse bait was a shaky head with a green pumpkin-colored Zoom Magnum Trick Worm.
4. The University of Alabama pair of Ethan Flack and Caiden Sinclair's primary bait was an umbrella rig and their secondary bait was a 6th Sense Crush 50X squarebill.
5. Also rocking a one-two punch, the University of Louisiana- Monroe due of Thomas Soileau and Hunter Freeman slowed down with black and blue V&M Pacemaker Flatline Football Jig paired with a Strike King Rage Tail Craw and sped up with a Strike King 6XD in citrus shad to get a reation bite.
6. Repping the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Stephen Smith and Graham Burke had boat problems all week so they didn't stick around to get their bait photos taken. However, we do know they threw a 1/4-ounce Taylor Man's Shaky Man’s Jigs and a 1/2-ounce Taylor Man's Football Jig (kentucky craw) around chunk rock banks and laydowns in Barkley. Another bait they caught fish on this week was a 5-inch Cabelas swimming minnow in a shad pattern.
7. Like many of the teams, Jeff Roman Clayton IV and Cody Peak of Mississippi State threw two seemingly opposite baits. They used a black and chartreuse 2.5 Strike King HC Square Bill and a shaky head with a Zoom Trick Worm in green pumpkin.
8. Cole and Tanner Atkinson of St. Ambrose University stuck to cranking points with two SPRO crankbaits: the SPRO Fat Papa 55 in nasty herring and the SPRO RkCrawler 55 in red crawfish.
9. The Illinois State University team of Taylor Umland and Justin Schick relied on an umbrella rig with Bass Pro Shops Speed Shads and a green pumpkin-colored vibrating jig.
10. Jay Emmert and Anthony Johnson of the University of Tennessee targeted staging bass with a Carolina-rigged Zoom Lizard in green pumpkin.