The Fairmont State University team of Brent Dodrill of Fairmont and Wil Dieffenbauch of Hundred won the National Guard FLW College Fishing Northern Division on Lake Champlain June 25 with five bass weighing 16 pounds, two ounces.

The victory earned the team $10,000 to be divided with $7,500 to the FSU Fishing Club and $2,500 for the university. The win also helped the team advance to the Northern Division Regional Championship.        

“We are real excited,” said Dodrill, a sophomore occupational safety major. “We had a 12-hour drive and this was my first time on Lake Champlain. What a thrill! Wil and I came up here with what we thought was a pretty good game plan and things seemed to work out for us.        

“It was windy pretty much all day, lots of big waves,” continued Dodrill. “We fished three rock points that produced all our fish. I was drop-shotting a Jackall Cross Tail on a casting rod. The rod is what really made the difference for me because I could feel every bite.”        

“I was on Champlain one other time,” said Dieffenbauch, a junior in civil engineering. “I had a pretty good idea of what the lake was like. We picked a few areas on the map that looked like they would hold smallmouth and went fishing.        

“Most of our big fish came in the morning,” added Dieffenbauch. “We didn’t get our last three-pound smallie until the last hour of the day.”        

This will be the third consecutive year the team from Fairmont State qualified for the Northern Regional Championship.        

Rounding out the top five teams and also advancing to the Northern Regional Championship were:        

Second, Ramapo College; Third, Christopher Newport; Fourth, Castleton State College; Fifth, North Carolina State University.

The top five teams from each tournament qualify for the regional championship, where the first-place team will win $12,500 for their school, $12,500 cash, and a Ranger 177TR bass boat with a 90 horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard wrapped in school colors for their fishing club.

The top five teams from each regional tournament advance to the national championship, where the first-place team will win $25,000 for their school, $50,000 cash, and a Ranger 177TR bass boat with a 90-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard wrapped in school colors for their fishing club.         

FLW College Fishing is free to enter and FLW Outdoors provides boats and drivers for each competing team along with travel allowances. All participants must be registered, full-time undergraduate students at a four-year college or university and members of a fishing club recognized by their college or university.        

The next National Guard FLW College Northern Division tournament is scheduled for July 30 at 1000 Islands in Clayton, N.Y., and is hosted by French Creek Marina.

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