The Greenville University Bass Fishing team competed in their second to the last tournament of the fall season over the weekend in Kinkaid, Illinois at Kinkaid Lake. The event, located about two hours south of campus, was a combination of the Illinois State Championship and the Illinois Bass Nation Qualifier being held at the same time, at the same place. Since both events were being held together, they combined the weigh-ins to just one weight that would decide the standings for both events.
The weather during these tournaments would prove to be the weakness of all twenty-two of the teams competing, but one. The wind topped out at 25 MPH, creating extremely difficult fishing conditions, which showed through the weigh-ins. The winning team of Trevor McKinney and Ethan Jones, from McKendree University, brought in the limit of five fish and won the tournament. Outside of the winning team, only five teams brought in two fish, seven teams brought in one fish, and nine teams did not bring any fish to scale. To put the bad weather conditions into perspective, the tournament average was one fish per team.
The top finishing team for Greenville University was the duo of Cordell Beckmann and Ricky Huge, bringing in two fish for a fourth place finish with 4.96 lbs. Cale Jausel and Ryan Rakers brought in one fish for 2.29 lbs, which put them in eleventh place. Chris Brooks and Hannah Hill finished in a close twelfth place with one fish for 2.24 lbs.
Cordell Beckmann stated, “The event was very tough for everyone. Luckily, Ricky (Huge) and I were able to make the most out of the fish we caught that day to help us finish in fourth place out of twenty-two boats, which will provide us with very good School of the Year points and help us move back into the top 30.” When asked about what went well Beckmann answered with, “During the tournament, what we thought would work to catch fish really was not panning out. So we were able to adapt and try something new and it worked out really well. We took a finesse approach to catch more fish and it helped us land our biggest fish.” When asked about the struggles he stated, “The morning was a disaster for us, we started throwing a frog in the grass looking for keeper bites. But the bass fish were not cooperating and just not hitting the frog in a way to get them in the boat. They would blow up on it (the frog) but not take it in for us to hook one of them. This was a similar story from other anglers after the tournament.”
With one more event left, the fall season is about to come to a close for the Bass Fishing team. Stay tuned for the results from the Murray State Invitational!
