Americana Outdoors E-Magazine - June 2020

the boat with 19 pounds of bass on Day 1. On Day 2, they started on that same spot, and sealed the victory in the first hour of competition. “Today we went there, and in probably 30 minutes we had a majority of our weight,” Fain concluded. Working swimbaits and topwaters to schooling fish, the ACA camera crews caught all of the action as Fain & Kendrick seized every opportunity that was presented to them in a hurry. “Both days we caught all of our weight first thing in the morning. It happened so fast, we didn’t know what to think,” noted Kendrick. “We didn’t know we had as much as we had either day.” Come to find out, they had the winning weight. To the tune of 35.99 pounds, Bailey Fain & Preston Kendrick are bringing home a national title the BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops to Bryan College.

their mid-morning spot, and run to one of the fresh schools of fish they had found during practice. “At 11 o’clock today I almost put the trolling motor up and took off…. We caught all these fish at 12 o’clock,” explained Dunagan. The decision to stay paid off to the tune of a couple thousand dollars and a second place finish in the biggest event in collegiate bass fishing.

One team that jumped up from back in the pack to challenge the Day 1 leaders were the Campbellsville University duo of Dalton Smith and Bradley Dunagan. They were in 26th place after the first day of competition with 14.42 pounds. The team from Kentucky managed to trigger one of those notorious schools of Pickwick Lake bass and weighed in over 20 pounds to slide up into second place overall. “It’s the first of June on Pickwick, we knew how it was going to be won,” said Smith. They knew it was going to be won deep. Dunagan and Smith located some key ‘secret spots’ out deep and had confidence in their pattern. So much confidence that they wanted to abandon

Rounding out the Top 3 were Martin McCravy and Triston Crowder from the University of North Alabama. The hometown team jumped all the way up from 50th place to third by weighing in 21.03 pounds of bass on Day 2. Early on today, we projected that a scenario like this could potentially play out. A change in weather conditions and a jam packed leaderboard lended itself to a huge potential shakeup. McCravy and Crowder used their local knowledge of Pickwick Lake to make that leap into the Top 3 on the final day.

Click here to view the final results.