CHAUTAUQUA, NY — The summer break from school proved to be a difference maker for two members of the West Virginia University bass fishing team when they traveled to Lake Chautauqua in New York for the July 23, 2016 FLW Northern Conference event.
“We left Tuesday and we pre-fished from 5 a.m. to dark each day,” said angler Bailey Gordon. “We put our hours in there, since it was summer we didn’t have to take any time off school. That was big, and really that’s why we were able to qualify honestly.”
Gordon who is from Hurricane, W.Va. and his partner Kirk Price from Boone County partnered up for the first time this season on the event. The pair pooled their fishing knowledge to breakdown the unique water which was unlike anything either had fished in West Virginia.
“We caught fish before 10 o’clock, but after that the wind would pick up and the big three foot rollers would start coming in and you couldn’t do much after that,” Gordon said on Northside Automotive West Virginia Outdoors.
The two cobbled together a plan based on the pre-fishing pattern they had established. They would start in a series of narrow canals where they were confident they could catch a quick limit of bass, then move to a series of docks out on the main body of the lake where they had located larger fish to up size the stringer. When Saturday arrived, Gordon admitted, the plan didn’t go quite they way they expected.
“We went up in the canals about the same time we caught fish every day, and we caught nothing. I was freaking out a little, but Kirk calmed me down,” he said. “We went out on the main lakes to the docks and on the third cast I caught one and then all of the sudden we had five in the boat in about 20 minutes. That was a big relief.”
They were able to upgrade their catch by culling smaller fish on three occasions. They would leave their targeted docks, fish unknown water for a while, then return to the docks and find more fish had moved in and started to feed.
“We fished the same three docks all day,” said Gordon. “We caught those first fish quick, but the rest of the day was a grind.”
But it was enough…barely. Price and Gordon wound up weighing in their sack at 10 pounds 2 ounces, which was three ounces shy of 10th place. The top ten finishers qualified for next year’s FLW National College Championships. Fortunately for them, one of the teams which finished above them in the standings had already qualified for the tournament, which gave the WVU anglers an entry into the event as well.
The location of the championship event hasn’t been announced, and the guys will have to wait until next spring to fish for the title.
“I kind of like that because it gives you something to look forward to,” said Gordon who is a past FLW High School National Fishing Championship qualifier. “Especially being in college it’s something to keep in the back of your head and allow you to save up some money for it.”