The Auburn University bass fishing team recently won the first-ever Major League Fishing College Redcrest National Championship, marking another impressive milestone for the most dominant collegiate angling program in the country.
The event was held on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin, last month.
In a release from the university in recent days, Logan Parks, vice president of the team, commented, “It’s pretty sweet to be able to say we are the first-ever Redcrest National Champions. We are looking forward to defending our title next year.”
The Auburn University Bass Fishing team is currently the top-ranked Division I team in the country, and it has held this impressive ranking almost every year since the team was founded in 2007.
Additionally, Auburn’s team is the only one ever to qualify and send a boat to every Fishing League Worldwide National Championship.
The team has some notable former members, including the winner of the Bassmaster Classic in 2017 and 2018, Jordan Lee, and his brother, Matt, who won the Carhartt College Bassmaster Classic Bracket.
“Jordan actually took another team member and me fishing in eighth grade when we first started our high school team at Auburn High School,” Parks said. “Ever since then, all we’ve wanted to do is come to Auburn and fish.”
This season, team members will compete in 15 to 20 events. Parks said he is honored to be able to compete for the same program as angling stars like Lee.
“To be able to represent the same school they did makes us set high standards for ourselves,” Parks emphasized. “They left a legacy for us to carry on and we plan on doing that.”
Team members included Parks, a junior studying supply chain management; Lucas Lindsay, a junior studying agricultural science; Will Phillips, a senior studying mechanical engineering; Chase Mundhenke, a sophomore studying agriculture business and economics; Patch Pelt, a senior studying building science; and Anthony Vintson, a senior studying accounting.
These individuals represented Auburn on three boats and brought home the recent title from the Redcrest National Championships. The team received an invitation to participate in this prestigious competition because it qualified and was ranked among the top five schools in America based on the competition’s unique point system.
The Auburn team’s top two boats caught a combined weight of nearly 97 pounds, winning them the competition and being seven pounds heavier than any of the other schools that competed.
“We ended up putting together a game plan and found enough fish to win,” Parks explained.
This came after Auburn’s team had already won the Major League Fishing College Iron Bowl held in May.
RELATED: Alabama high school students win Bassmaster championship for second consecutive year
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.