COLUMBIA, S.C. — The caliber of anglers competing in the Columbia PFG College Fishing Presented by Abu Garcia ranks has made major waves in recent years. It’s become common to see collegians cashing big checks at the Toyota Series level and even qualifying for national tours while still enrolled in school.
So, when the best college teams in the country arrived at one of the premier largemouth fisheries in South Carolina’s Lake Murray for the College Fishing National Championship, competitors expected a slugfest. Yet defending champion Peyton Sorrow of the University of Montevallo, who hails from South Carolina and regularly fishes Murray, didn’t see this coming: Five tandems topped 25 pounds on Day 1 and 23 broke the 22-pound mark.
All of them are once again looking up at Sorrow and his partner, Brody Robison, who got off to a great start in their quest to be the first back-to-back champs since the first two editions of the National Championship in 2010 and 2011. Robison and Sorrow sacked up 26 pounds, 6 ounces. They lead Levi Thibodaux and Miles Smith of LSU-Shreveport by just 3 ounces, while a pair of Carson-Newman University duos are tied for third with 25-12.
“Definitely expected for there to be some really big bags caught, but not the caliber that this has been,” Sorrow said. “These are probably some of the most unreal Murray weights that I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t know, actually, if I’ve ever seen them like this before.
“But what do you expect? The college guys came to town, and they smashed ‘em, per usual.”
Strong start, key culls power Robison and Sorrow
Considering Robison and Sorrow won last year’s National Championship on Wheeler Lake, plus Sorrow’s knowledge of Murray, the Montevallo pair entered this event as one of the clear teams to beat. But after a slow practice, they didn’t take off Thursday morning with sky-high expectations.
“We were kind of unsure,” Sorrow said. “We had a very tough practice with very, very few bites. Didn’t really honestly catch any big ones until the last day of practice; we got a couple bites to kind of clue us in.”
The pair started Day 1 at the one spot where they’d gotten multiple quality bites and fared better than they anticipated. They put more than 20 pounds in the livewell during the first hour. From there, they ran new water, keying on areas that set up similarly, and made two big culls.
“We fished a lot of new water,” Robison said. “We did a lot of hunting and just using the clues we gained from our start and tried to replicate it through different parts of the lake – places that Peyton knows large fish live and places that relate to what we’re doing. So, we were able to fish some new water and caught about a 5 1/2 mid-day and a 4 1/2.”
Even on this stage, Robison and Sorrow are comfortable fishing new water during competition. During their win at Wheeler, they dedicated big portions of Days 1 and 2 to idling new areas.
“We kind of changed our whole style right before that Wheeler tournament last year – just how we practice, how we go through tournaments,” Robison said. “Our biggest thing is just not having a plan. We have a starting hole, and we let the fish tell us what to do from there.”
While Sorrow’s Murray knowledge helped the pair expand their pattern, he said the lake is fishing differently than he’s seen it in past Februarys. Robison said they leaned just as much on their experience fishing for big winter bass in Alabama, where Montevallo is located.
“We’ve spent a lot of time messing around with oversized largemouth in cold water,” Robison said. “That’s some of our favorite stuff to do. I live on Guntersville, and the fish there act pretty similar to the fish here, and we fish some other smaller lakes around the house, and we’ve spent a lot of time working on this type of fishing – maybe not a highland reservoir, but just cold water, big largemouth. So, getting to do it in a big-scale tournament is really fun.”
Sorrow has no doubt that he and Robison will be able to put baits in front of more quality fish on Day 2. The challenge will be getting them to bite. Bass in the clear waters of Murray tend to be fickle, and they could get tougher as pressure mounts from the 153-boat event.
“We’re around some really, really big fish,” Sorrow said. “We’re not worried about catching size; we’re worried about catching five. That’s our main issue. If we get five bites, we’re going to have a big bag.”
Sorrow and Robison aren’t feeling any pressure as the defending champs. Sorrow said they’re “laid back like we always are.”
However, they recognize that extending Montevallo’s stranglehold over the sport by winning the Falcons’ third National Championship in the past four years would be big for the program.
“It would be absolutely amazing to pull it off,” Robison said. “We’ve got a long ways to go, but that would just be a really good opportunity for us to showcase our abilities and show off the university and the talent that’s went through the program in the last couple years.”
Top 10 teams:
1. Brody Robison and Peyton Sorrow, University of Montevallo – 26-6 (5)
2. Levi Thibodaux and Miles Smith, LSU-Shreveport – 26-3 (5)
3. Dylan Gray and Riley Brown, Carson-Newman University – 25-12 (5)
3. Brayden Ruckman and Zach Wolfe, Carson-Newman University – 25-12 (5)
5. Matthew Knopp and Logan Russell, Lander University – 25-10 (5)
6. Ethan Burnette and Cameron Dials, Kentucky Christian University – 24-3 (5)
7. Nick Owens and Mitchell Straffon, Adrian College – 24-0 (5)
8. Levi Kohl and Grant Meisenletter, Murray State University – 23-15 (5)
9. Matthew Dettling and Cody Domingos, University of Tennessee – 23-12 (5)
10. Cole Edwards and Brody Mitchell, University of Montevallo – 23-6 (5)
10. Cooper Gilroy and Jack Wilson, University of Alabama – 23-6 (5)