Final day on Sam Rayburn

The final day of the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Central Regional presented by Bass Pro Shops on Sam Rayburn Reservoir started off under cloudy skies as the Top 20 college teams headed out in search of a National Championship berth and a regional victory.

Starting the day in 3rd place was Tyler Craig and Spencer Lambert from Louisiana-Monroe. They were on an early bite that produced numerous fish the last few days, and today was no exception.

They were catching fish fast and furiously on Championship Saturday.

This is keeper number 3 for the ULM duo.

Moments later, Craig was hooked up again and they were prepared to land their 4th keeper.

This was their smallest keeper caught during this early morning flurry, but it was just as important because it put them one step closer to a limit.

That’s keeper number 4 on a lipless crankbait.

Their fifth keeper would come shortly thereafter.

Time elapsed: Five minutes.

Time to upgrade for ULM as they just filled their limit.

ULM lead on Day 1 with 24-8, then fell to 3rd despite adding 15-13 on Day 2.

They trailed the leaders by only 1-3 at launch, and had nearly erased that deficit depending on how fast other teams were catching them.

Craig and Lambert have worked well together this week; they have amassed over 40 pounds in two days.

This acrobatic fish is the biggest of the morning thus far.

It splashed down just in front of the net as Lambert stretched for it.

The scoop…

And score for this team.

They celebrate the solid fish.

Stetson Overton and Cason Kelley were in the background working some of the shallow cover. They managed to sneak into the Top 20 in the final spot.

Craig hooked up with another fish as the onslaught continued.

He shows off how good that fish ate his bait to the GoPro.

Craig evaluated a couple fish and made the cull.

Before I knew it, he was hooked up again. This one seemed to be of the better quality.

Lambert with the scoop and that’ll be another cull for ULM.

All of this action happened before 8 a.m. on the final day of competition.

I left ULM and found the Day 2 leaders from Texas Tech and they showed me just a taste of what I missed early this morning.

They had four fish in the livewell, but two of them were grown ones! They also dealt with a lot of boats in their area as a 300+ Texas Team Trail tournament was going on today.

He wasn’t quite sure what kind of weight they had so Travis McGuire decided to weigh their fish.

They had roughly 17 pounds with four fish thanks, in part, to two 6 pounders.

Some of the other boats were getting in on some action nearby.

Travis McGuire and Layne Bynum were keeping their head in the game as they stayed focused despite boat traffic and the cold north wind that was coming down the lake.

They were utilizing some big crankbaits to reach depths of 20 or more feet.

They caught 28 pounds on Day 2 in this area and they were on the way to another big bag.

McGuire was bouncing his crankbait off brush and rocks on the bottom and caught someones old fishing line.

Meanwhile the boat closest to them was hooked up.

With a pretty good fish.

Boats were flying by everywhere we looked and it was churning the waters pretty good on the final day.

Brandon Simoneaux and Colby Ogden of Lamar University drive by.

The duo struggled on Day 1 and couldn’t get the big fish to fire up, but that wasn’t the case on Day 2 or today.

But getting an extra long cast out was a difficult task to do.

McGuire and Bynum decided to leave and they would return later, but they went to fill their limit somewhere else.

Word is that they upgraded big time and had another bag in the 20’s.

The University of Louisiana-Lafayette made a jump up the leaderboard from 40th on Day 1 and into 2nd place after yesterday’s weigh-in.

Dakota Moore and Lawrence Kuznik had over 26 pounds to help vault them up the leaderboard.

They were struggling today though as they had two fish at 11 a.m.

They were fishing slowly with multiple soft plastic presentations.

But it was becoming increasingly difficult with the wind and waves blowing straight into the mouth of their area.