Some Regional anglers like to travel to different lakes throughout their region. Johnnny Patterson apparently likes staying close to home.
Patterson has fished five events this spring (four Regional, one Minor), and all of them have been on Guntersville. Considering he has four top 10s and a win this year, he’s obviously putting money in the bank. He’s also the No. 2-ranked Regional angler thanks to his debut in the rankings following this weekend’s FLW BFL on Guntersville.
That Guntersville event was one of nine regional events this weekend along with ABA Weekend Series on Lake Toho, Toledo Bend, High Rock Lake, and FLW BFLs on Millwood Lake, Lake Eufaula, Lake Cumberland, Lake of the Ozarks and Lake Russell.
Needless to say, we saw quite a bit of movement even beyond Patterson debuting at No. 2, and a lot of it seemed in the wrong direction. For instance, Jerry Kotal snapped his top-10 streak with a 51st at Lake Russell, sending him from fourth to 16th in the Regional Ranking. Dennis Bean was No. 9 until the Millwood event dropped him to 53rd. And Marcus Sykora had his worst tournament in a year at Lake of the Ozarks to slip from 10th to 12th (though, it obviously wasn’t too bad).
Other notable slides in the top 50 include Jeremy Lawyer (14th to 34th), Kerry Milner (30th to 38th), David McCormick (24th to 39th), Scott Hayes (38th to 103rd) and Mike Cooper (43rd to 151st).
Of course, it wasn’t all bad. Brandon Cobb (37th to 28th), Stephen Dyer (71st to 41st), Terry Tucker (52nd to 43rd) and Jason Tucker (76th to 47th) all moved up.
College
If you haven’t heard what Oregon State teammates Zach MacDonald and William (Ryan) Sparks have been doing, you need to check them out. The duo has fished three events this year and placed third, first and now first with a win at the BASS College Series event at Clear Lake.
That win debuted the entire school at No. 2 in the College Ranking.
If you can believe it, that same event debuted a second team in the top 10 — California State-Long Beach.
On the other side of the country, NC State used the FLW College Fishing event at Seminole to move up from 24th to 14th. However, that same event hurt a number of teams in the top 25, including Kennesaw State (10th to 17th), Alabama (11th to 21st), Tennessee-Chattanooga (16th to 30th) and Central Florida (20th to 28th).
Make sure to check back tomorrow for a Data Overload breakdown of Beaver Lake.
