N.C. State anglers Josh Hooks and Will White entered the competition days of the Elite 2008 Under Armour College Bass National Championship confident that their haul would land them a spot in the championship round on Friday, July 11. The pair represented the top two fishermen from BassPack, State’s competitive bass fishing club.
“We didn’t come to fish for second,” Hooks, a freshman in industrial engineering, said.
While the two came up short of a national championship, they managed to place 9th out of the top 54 college teams in the country. The finish kept them out of the championship round, as only the top five teams by weight qualify for the final day of fishing. Hooks said it was a somewhat disappointing performance.
“The tournament could have been run a little better,” Hooks said. “You don’t want to have a tournament on a lake with no fish in it. It was fun but it was kind of disappointing, kind of boring in way.”
The event was held on Lake Maumelle in Little Rock, Ark. According to White, a senior in wood products, it was a hard lake to fish. He said although the team did not catch the weight it needed, they should be proud of making the top-ten of a national tournament. “We did a lot better than other people,” White said. “Half the field didn’t come in with any fish hardly. It was a really hard lake to fish. Those are the top 54 teams in the country. To get into the top 9 out of that is really good.”
The defining moment of the competition came on the second day. A low pressure system moved into the area ahead of an approaching rainstorm. The conditions drove fish that had previously occupied shallow water into the deeper regions of the lake.
White said he and Hooks should have recognized the conditions sooner and reacted to them. Not doing so may have cost them the tournament.
“The shallow water fish moved out deep,” White said. “We didn’t go with them. We stayed shallow and just tried to grind it for five fish, and it didn’t work out the way we hoped it could.”
Jason Livingston, the president of BassPack, said White’s and Hooks’ top-ten finish is another strong performance in the club’s history of success on the national stage.
“We’ve done better in some these tournaments,” Livingston said. “We’ve had some big wins. But as far as consistency, you won’t find a club in the nation that has been more consistent than we have. We have only fished in one national tournament that finished outside the top ten. They did a good job. We’re real proud of them.”
Both Hooks and White will now set their sights on the 2008 Boat U.S. National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship on Lake Lewisville near Dallas, TX.
The event will be held September 18-20 and it allows each college organization to send two teams to the tournament. Hooks and White will be competing against one another in different pairs.
