A Big Catch
Team fishes for national title
It’s been a long time coming, but Georgia Southern University’s Jed Thigpen and Wesley Maples finally earned the opportunity to go bass fishing for a national title.
After three years of fishing at the club level, the pair faced off against the 25 best collegiate bass fishing teams in the nation at the 2012 National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship, April 13-15, on Lake Murray in Columbia, S.C.
“It’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last three years,” said Maples about qualifying for the tournament. “This is as big as it gets.”
“As far as college fishing goes, it’s our Super Bowl,” added Thigpen. “This is what we fish for all year. It means a lot just to get to this point, because we spent a lot of time, money and effort just to get here.”
In their first-ever trip to the national championship, the Eagles placed 17th out of 25 teams. Kansas State won the 2012 national title, and rounding out the top five were Clemson, Kennesaw State, Auburn and Virginia Tech.
Thigpen and Maples finished behind Georgia (No. 14), Indiana (No. 15) and LSU (No. 16).
The pair of Eagles saw a lot of success on the way to clinching a berth in the national championship. The Georgia Southern teammates placed first out of 40 teams at a qualifying tournament on April 30, 2011, at Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Ala., to earn a spot at the 2011 FLW Southeastern Conference Championship. The Georgia Southern duo edged second-place Georgia by 1 pound, 2 ounces for the first-place win.
Then, on Sept. 8, 2011, at Lake Harding in Auburn, Ala., Thigpen and Maples did something no other Georgia Southern pair had done before. They placed in the top five at the conference championship, earning the program’s first national championship berth.
Halfway through the three-day event, the anglers thought they would make an early exit.
“After the second day, we were ready to pack our stuff up,” said Thigpen about the team’s weigh-in of 12 pounds, 4 ounces. “We didn’t think we had a chance. We ended up sliding into fourth, and we couldn’t believe it. It was awesome.”
The Eagles edged Auburn by less than a pound to take fourth place on day three, and finished behind teams from Georgia, Clemson and Kennesaw State, which also qualified for the national championship tournament.
In preparation for the national championship event, the team spent as much time as possible on Lake Murray.
“We feel pretty good,” Maples said before the team left for Columbia. “We’ve been going out on weekends to check the lake out, practice and look around. We’re happy with what we’re catching right now. It’s 50/50. You’ve got to know where to catch them, but you’ve got to be lucky enough to catch the big ones.”
There was a lot at stake at the national championship, with cash and prizes provided by FLW Outdoors, the governing body of a series of professional and collegiate fishing tournaments. The national championship win earned Kansas State $50,000, a new boat wrapped in school colors for its bass club and $25,000 toward a general scholarship for Kansas State University.
The national championship pair from KSU also earned a spot in the 2012 Forrest Wood Cup, which will be held August 9-12, on Lake Lanier in Duluth, Ga. The Forrest Wood Cup is the world championship of professional bass fishing, and the collegiate national champions will have a chance at the $600,000 grand prize.
Coverage from the 2012 National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship aired nationwide in high definition on the NBC Sports Network on May 27.