Murray State Wins MLF College Fishing Tournament on Grand Lake

GROVE, Okla. (March 10, 2025) – The Murray State College duo of Shaden Farley of Valliant, Oklahoma, and Sam Sutter of Bixby, Oklahoma, won the MLF College Fishing tournament on Grand Lake Friday with a five-bass limit weighing 18 pounds, 2 ounces. The victory earned the Aggies’ bass club $2,000 and a qualification into the 2025 MLF College Fishing National Championship.

There’s a cliché every fan of tournament bass fishing has heard a thousand times: When it’s your time, it’s your time. There may be no recent example as worthy of that phrase as Murray State College’s win at Grand Lake. From the very start, it looked like everything was going to go wrong. And then, just as quickly, it all went so right.

“We had a plan to run all the way south down there on the south end of Grand Lake,” said Sutter. “We had the fish found down there. We ended up running midway down there today, and we lost my trim. It got stuck all the way down. We had to fish what was in front of us the rest of the day. We probably had a quarter mile of bank in front of us, and that’s what we fished all day.”

“The key to it all was definitely that leading back there was just a little bitty cut right on the edge,” added Farley, “which would make a spawning pocket, and there were brush piles right out in front of that. And that’s what was holding them.”

When they first pulled up, the Aggies spotted one of the brush piles on live sonar, tossed an Alabama rig over it and two fish followed it up. Though they lost one of those fish right off the bat, they took it as a sign that there might be potential there. Once they expanded, Sutter and Farley were able to locate three key brush piles in 10 to 15 feet of water. Those brush piles produced four of the winning fish.

Sutter and Farley used YUM YUMbrella Flash Mob Jr. rigs with 1/16-ounce heads and a mix of Keitech swimbaits for their wires with hooks and small shad-colored swimbaits for their hookless teasers. The lightweight setup was perfect for staying over the top of the brush.

And to go back to the “if it’s your day” cliché, Farley and Sutter weren’t done yet. When they idled back to the ramp at the end of the day, they caught a last-minute keeper to seal up the win by flipping a Strike King Rage Craw in some dirty water by the ramp.

“God is good,” Sutter said. “Right as we sat down, I was just punching my rod box, asking why? Why is this happening? I had an all right practice, and I knew the bite was tough. And I was just asking myself why? I think we put our heads down, and the good Lord made it happen. When it’s your time, it’s your time.”

The top 10 teams finished:

1st: Murray State College – Shaden Farley, Valliant, Okla., and Sam Sutter, Bixby, Okla., five bass, 18-2, $2,000
2nd: Drury University – Jacob Longlois, Orange, Texas, and Seth Prather, Dallas, Texas, five bass, 16-8, $1,000
3rd: Drury University – David Derubertis, Frankfort, Ill., and Curt Ferguson, Huntsville, Ark., five bass, 14-8, $700
4th: McKendree University – Jaxson Freeman, Loda, Ill., and Jack Stephens, St. Louis, Mo., five bass, 14-3, $600
5th: University of Missouri – Brett Hurst, Helena, Mo., and Ty Nielsen, Wheaton, Ill., five bass, 13-15, $500
6th: Tarleton State - Stephenville – Dawson Lynch, Ben Wheeler, Texas, and Jared Mizell, Pearland, Texas, five bass, 13-10       
7th: Wabash Valley College – Hunter Russell, Salem, Ill., and Richard Skiff, Edwardsville, Ill., five bass, 13-8   
8th: Campbellsville University – Clay Oberman, Campbellsville, Ky., and Will Oberman, Lancaster, Ky., five bass, 13-7     
9th: Drury University – Clay Henderson, Purdy, Mo., and Brant Rowland, Little Suamico, Wis., five bass, 13-6
10th: McKendree University – Ryan Foster, Columbia, Ill., and Angelo Malek, Lake St. Louis, Mo., four bass, 12-14               

The full list of National Championship qualifiers and complete results for the entire field can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

The next tournament for MLF College Fishing anglers will be on Kentucky-Barkley Lakes, March 28 in Gilbertsville, Kentucky.