Montevallo bolts to lead at College Championship

KISSIMMEE, Fla. – After strong winds and inclement weather forced the cancelation of the first day of competition on Tuesday, the University of Montevallo duo of Nicholas Dumke and Easton Fothergill – both of Grand Rapids, Minnesota – grabbed the early lead Wednesday after Day 1 of the 2024 College Fishing National Championship at Lake Toho. The Falcons team brought a five-bass limit to the scale weighing 27 pounds, 3 ounces, giving them a 3-15 lead over the second-place Adrian College team of Gerald Brumbaugh of Martinsburgh, Pennsylvania and Mitchell Straffon of Fenton, Michigan.

Dumke and Fothergill said when they pulled up to their first spot on Wednesday morning – the best area they’d discovered during practice on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes – they found nothing. No keepers, no bites, no activity on forward-facing sonar. While that’s not an ideal start, it didn’t take long to relocate some of Lake Toho’s big bass.

The high winds and storms the previous day had moved their fish, but Dumke and Fothergill located another school of baitfish and bass Wednesday on what Fothergill called “a wind-blown corner.” They stayed in the area for the rest of the day.

“It was a pretty wild day, definitely something I won’t ever forget," Dumke said. “There were some key times throughout the day and we just were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”

Fothergill and Dumke discovered during practice that the biggest bass on the Kissimmee Chain could be finicky, only willing to eat during a few key "bite windows” each day. So, once they found some quality fish, the duo hunkered down, targeting the bass using forward-facing sonar.

Dumke said they caught all their weight within three 30-minute periods. A 7-inch glide bait provoked the biggest bites, including a 7-11 brute caught by Fothergill that anchored the team’s limit and took big-bass honors.

“Our main deal is LiveScoping, so we’re throwing at fish every single cast we make,” Fothergill said. “We can tell how the fish are reacting to our baits and what we’ve seen from practice is they’ll just kind of react a few times and then all of a sudden, they’ll explode on your baits. It was like that for about a half-hour, and then things would die off again. We found that we really had to capitalize on it when the bite windows opened up. When we noticed that happening today, we just made sure we were around where the big ones were, and it worked out.”

The top 10 teams after Day 1 on Lake Toho are:

1st: University of Montevallo – Nicholas Dumke and Easton Fothergill, both of Grand Rapids, Minn., five bass, 27-3
2nd: Adrian College – Gerald Brumbaugh of Martinsburgh, Penn., and Mitchell Straffon of Fenton, Mich., five bass, 23-4
3rd: Tarleton State-Stephenville – Garett Cadenhead of Fort Worth, Texas, and Jared Mizell of Pearland, Texas, five bass, 22-15
4th: Campbellsville University – Carter Doren of Las Vegas, Nev., and Ryan Lachniet of Gum Spring, Va., five bass, 21-15
5th: Emmanuel University – Robert Miller of Savannah, Ga., and John Micheal Ortman of Douglas, Ga., five bass, 21-11
6th: University of North Alabama – Dylan and Carter Nutt, both of Nashville, Tenn., five bass, 21-7
7th: Northeastern State University-Tahlequah – Levi Juby and Cooper Park of Sperry, Okla., five bass, 20-7
8th: Lander University – Kaleb Brown of Northfield, Mass., and Cole Moulton of Enfield, N.H., five bass, 19-7
9th: Erskine College – Lane Clark of Anderson, S.C., and Adam Seagle of Lincolnton, S.C., five bass, 18-12
10th: Carson-Newman University – Ben Cully of Rockwall, Texas, and Hayden Gaddis of Seymour, Tenn., five bass, 18-11
10th: Adrian College – Braylon Eggerding and Lucas Washburn of Grand Rapids, Mich., five bass, 18-11

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