Georgia Southern Team Wins Bassmaster College Tourney

Brayden Batchelor and Quinn Williams of Georgia Southern University placed first in the Bassmaster College Series tournament on Lake Okeechobee.

Brayden Batchelor and Quinn Williams of Georgia Southern University knew they’d found the spot, and their confidence delivered a two-day winning total of 42 pounds, 3 ounces in the Strike King Bassmaster College Series event at Lake Okeechobee presented by Bass Pro Shops.

Edging Kentucky Christian University’s Cameron Dials and Ethan Burnette by a margin of 2-3, Batchelor and Williams took home $2,966.50 each and earned a spot in the Strike King Bassmaster College Series National Championship.

“This win means so much for me and my team,” said Batchelor, who serves as team president. “To come into this year as the new president, I couldn’t ask for more.

“I really wanted to make my family proud. They usually come to our tournaments, but they weren’t able to this time,” Batchelor said. “I told my mom she’d be sorry — and she was.”

Bassmaster Video Of Weigh-In

Batchelor said he and Williams spent both days in the Pelican Bay area on the lake’s southeast side. During practice, they dialed in a pair of backwater ponds in Winnie’s Cove and quickly recognized the potential they had discovered.

“We pulled in an area, and it was loaded,” Batchelor said. “I (hooked) a 5-pounder on a ChatterBait during practice on Tuesday and we just came home after that at 11 a.m. We knew that was going to be our first spot.

“We started there both days and caught like 70 fish off it in two days.”

Noting that clear water and hard bottom were the key features that attracted a parade of spawning fish, Batchelor said he and his partner were so impressed with their findings that they never visited their second pond during the event.

“We had to push back in there with our net,” Batchelor said of the shallow pond. “The depth was about 1.7 feet, with 2-foot depressions and beds everywhere today.

“We found that magical spot and we had it almost all to ourselves. There was one other boat in that area.”

The week’s warming trend prompted widespread spawning activity throughout much of Okeechobee’s vastness. As Williams pointed out, rising water temperatures explained their day-to-day improvement — 19-1 and 23-2.

“I think the water heating up definitely had an impact on the fish moving into our area,” Williams said. “We had double the bites that we had (on Day 1) and we had big fish — a 7-3 and a 5-6 — and that water heating up caused them to eat more.

“The water was about 4 degrees warmer today. Right when we got into the cove in the morning it was already hotter than it was yesterday. We both think the big fish moved in overnight, and that’s what helped us win today.”

The winners caught all of their fish on Zoom Super Flukes in watermelon red. Batchelor used a 4/0 round bend hook, while Williams opted for a wide gap hook.

“We noticed that the fish liked it when we popped an unweighted Fluke off the bottom,” Williams said. “We’d cast it out, let it sink and work it slow; just a few pops, let it sit, another few pops, let it sit. We didn’t get any bites when we worked it fast.”

Describing the all-day action, Williams said a stealthy approach served his team’s objective.

“Today, we just slowly rotated around the area,” Williams said. “We tried to not use the trolling motor as much because the fish didn’t like the noise and the dirt being kicked up. We just let the boat drift with the wind and Power-Poled down every 15 feet.”

Batchelor also noted that fishing with their sonar units off maximized their stealth, as did super-long casts.

“Every one of our big fish came at the end of an 80-foot cast,” he said.

Batchelor said their bites started quickly, and they had a limit in the livewell by 7:45. Pulling the plug early, they headed back to the weigh-in at Roland Martin Marina.

“At 1:45 we made the decision to come on back,” Batchelor said. “We didn’t think we had won, but we thought we should go ahead and come back in case something happened.”

Dials and Burnette finished second with 40-0. After placing sixth on Day 1 with 18-6, they added a Day 2 limit of 21-10.

Fishing a canal on the lake’s north side, Dials and Burnette focused on a 100-yard stretch, where they caught their prespawn fish in depths of 10 to 20 feet. Damiki rigs comprised of 3/16-ounce heads and Strike King Z-Too minnows in the Arkansas shiner color produced all of their weight.

“I was seeing them (on forward facing sonar) a good ways out and I was trying to get to them before I got too close,” Dials said. “Sometimes, we’d see a ball of shad and there would be two or three (bass) dotted up.

“We could catch 2- to 3-pounders doing that, but most of our big ones came closer to the bank. It seemed like those bigger females were sitting there right off the bank, waiting to move up.”

Cody Abbot and Trenton Carey of Lander University finished third with 38-2. Their daily weights were 23-10 and 14-08.

Rylan Green and Luke McGuffin of Erskine College won the $100 Big Bass award for their 9-5.

New for 2025, the top two highest-finishing teams in the Strike King Bassmaster College Series Bass Pro Shops Team of the Year race as well as each team that stands atop the rankings in the Legends and Lunkers divisions of the College Series will receive the exclusive honor of being named a Bassmaster College All-American. The All-Americans will be honored on the biggest stage in bass fishing, the 2026 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour.

Discover Hendry County hosted the tournament.