Drury Anglers Breeden & Smith Top Elite Field To Win AFTCO Collegiate Bass Open
Category: article
Oct 12th, 2020 by Keith Worrall
Modified Oct 12th, 2020 at 9:45 PM
DRURY ANGLERS BREEDEN & SMITH TOP ELITE FIELD TO WIN AFTCO COLLEGIATE BASS OPEN
RUSSELLVILLE, AR (October 11, 2020) – The scales are closed here in Russellville, AR and the 2020 AFTCO Collegiate Bass Open at Lake Dardanelle is in the books. 150 collegiate teams took to the storied Arkansas River fishery with the hopes of finishing in the Top 20 and taking home their share of $20,000 in prizes & contingencies. Day two of tournament action resulted in a lot of movement near the top of the leaderboard, but when the weights were finalized, Cole Breeden & Cameron Smith finished in first place. The duo of anglers from 15th ranked Drury University weighed in a two-day total of 26.52 pounds to top the field and earn upwards of $5,000 in prizes & contingencies.
Breeden & Smith entered today with a nearly five-pound lead after weighing 19.90 pounds on day one. They made the decision to return to the area that produced on Saturday in hopes of finding several more big bites. “We definitely fished the same area. We didn’t think there were a lot of fish, but we thought there was the better size that we had yesterday,” noted Breeden. “We figured if we put ourselves in there all day, that we’d happen to run across a big one or two and we’d be good, but that just didn’t happen.”
After staying in that area all day today, the Drury University anglers only managed to land three keepers for a total of 6.62 pounds. The bite in their key area was slow and methodical. “Usually it was two or three flips in there, then they bit,” explained Smith. Breeden & Smith worked a jig around shallow cover for both days of the tournament. “Both of us were throwing a green pumpkin with a little bit of blue in it,” said Breeden. That jig setup combined with a magical stretch of water proved to be the winning keys for Cole Breeden & Cameron Smith from Drury University.
Along with the $5,000 in prizes & contingencies that the pair wins for taking overall top prize, they also earn 1,000 points for Drury University towards the Bass Pro Shops School of the Year presented by Abu Garcia. Drury entered this weekend ranked 15th overall out of more than 300 collegiate fishing teams in the nation. One other team from Drury also managed a Top 5 finish at this week’s AFTCO Collegiate Bass Open. Beau Browning & Brock Bila finished in fifth place for the weekend with 21.73 pounds. Those two top five finishes will earn Drury more than 1,900 points towards their School of the Year total. That should go a long way in helping the team from Springfield, MO move way up in the standings that will be revealed later this week.