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Adrian College bass fishing teammates Lucas Washburn, left, and Braylon Eggerding won the recent 2023 Michigan Bass Nation College State Championship at Grand Traverse Bay.
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Outdoors: Adrian College bass fishing team stays on top

MBN

Outdoors: Adrian College bass fishing team stays on top

ADRIAN — Back in 2015, when tiny Adrian College decided to field a varsity bass fishing team, the school and its first bass fishing head coach, Seth Borton, were standing at the base of a veritable mountain and looking straight up.

The southern schools, with year-round open-water bass fishing and well-established programs, were at a huge advantage. Many of the members of those southern teams had grown up fishing the lakes where most of the major college tournaments are held, often making those events “home games” for schools south of the Mason-Dixon line.

There also would be great differences in funding, sponsorship, and manufacturer support. Adrian would need to make quite a climb just to find a place on the collegiate bass fishing landscape.

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“Looking back, it was a lot to take on,” said Borton, a former hard-nosed point guard for the Siena Heights basketball team and himself a competitive bass fisherman.

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“Fishing tournaments on those lakes, where it is right in the wheelhouse of those southern schools, the lakes where they might have 20 years' worth of information, and we come in a lot less familiar with the water, and that can make things incredibly difficult. It makes that mountain harder than one you'd face in any other sport.”

(Video courtesy of Adrian College/Reaghan Pietrowski)

So how is the climb going?

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Adrian has scaled that precipice and positioned itself on the summit.

Less than a decade after some scoffed at the notion of Adrian even being able to occasionally be respectable against the powerhouse programs, we find Adrian will be represented by five of its two-man teams in the elite field for the upcoming Bassmaster College National Championship on Tennessee's Pickwick Lake.

The Bulldog bass fishing program finished the 2022-23 season ranked fourth in the nation. In each of the three previous years, Adrian finished the season ranked third, and the Bulldogs have not finished out of the top five in the national rankings over the past six years.

Two years ago, the Adrian team of Hayden Scott and Griffin Fernandes won the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series National Championship, defeating 124 other teams.

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In the recent Michigan Bass Nation College State Championship held at Elk Rapids on Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay, two freshmen from the Adrian bass fishing team won the tournament, which qualified them for a place in this week's National Championship event at Pickwick.

Lucas Washburn and Braylon Eggerding, a pair of 19-year-olds, targeted smallmouth bass and checked in a five-fish bag that weighed 28.51 pounds to win the state title.

“They were both freshmen members of our team last year, and I knew they were good,” Borton said. “But they have even surprised me a little bit with just how quickly they have been able to jump into the college scene and be very competitive, especially since they are going up against kids who are older and have been doing this at the college level for several years.”

Adrian College two-man teams took the top three positions in the final standings at the event. Borton added he was impressed with not just the Adrian sweep of the first three places in the state tournament at Grand Traverse Bay, but that all three of those teams weighed in more than 25 pounds of bass in the event.

“That size bag in the dead of summer is pretty much unheard of,” he said. “It is kind of hard to process what these kids are putting together. And I think in the case of that state tournament, fishing in Michigan where these kids have had a lot of experience, it always helps to be closer to home. They were just out there doing the things that most of these kids grew up doing.”

Borton said as Adrian has been climbing that mountain with its strong run of bass fishing success, his recruiting map has expanded, although the heart of his team still comes from Michigan and neighboring states.

“I'm hearing from anglers from coast to coast who want to come fish for Adrian,” he said. “We've got kids from Montana and California interested in fishing for us.”

The Adrian coach said the skill level and expertise of his group of anglers and potential recruits has grown exponentially in just the short window since the program got its start.

“Besides being very good fishermen, these kids are coming from a technology background,” Borton said. “They have just exploded as anglers with the new technologies that are available and how you can track fish now. If you know how to use the latest equipment and electronics, then it is very easy to identify areas that will hold fish, and locate fish off the bottom. With this latest group, it is a combination of using a lot of techniques they cut their teeth on, and then taking it to a whole new level with the technology.”

Another change that has taken place since Adrian started its bass fishing program is the length of the season. The schedule has expanded with additional tournaments being added, so the season now runs from the end of January through October.

“It has definitely gotten longer and more intense,” Borton said. “I feel like we are pretty much at the peak of the mountain, and to stay there is very tough. With the way the sport of bass fishing has grown at the college level, it is harder than ever to stay in the top five or top 10. Every year's team here has to take on the mentality that they will dig a little deeper, overcome a lot, and fight to stay one of the best in the country.”

First Published August 5, 2023, 8:50 p.m.

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Adrian College bass fishing teammates Lucas Washburn, left, and Braylon Eggerding won the recent 2023 Michigan Bass Nation College State Championship at Grand Traverse Bay.  (MBN)
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