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Vandalia Lake hosts collegiate bass tourney

Vandalia Lake hosted the fifth annual Illinois Collegiate State Bass Tournament on Sunday, and two of the participants were graduates of Brownstown High School.

Twenty-five two-man teams competed, with a Western Illinois University team topping the field with a 14.81-pound total. A McKendree University team placed second with a 12.17-pound total, and a team from the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Bassmasters Club was third with more than 11 pounds of bass.

Other colleges represented at the tournament included University of Illinois, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University and SIU-Carbondale, with some of the schools’ clubs having more than one team entered.

The tournament was held at Vandalia Lake because the winner from the previous year gets to pick the site. The 2011 champ, Zachary Hartnagel of SIUE, chose the local lake because he has fished here a number of times with this year’s partner, Colten Hunter of Brownstown.

Hunter, a sophomore who is majoring in biological sciences with a minor in chemistry, teamed up with Hartnagel to take fifth place, catching five fish totaling 9.06 pounds.

Hunter, the son of Allen and Deb Hunter of Brownstown, is the vice president of the SIUE Bassmasters Club.

Also participating in the tournament was Clayton Black, a member of a NIU team.

Black is a graduate student at NIU, working on a master’s degree in public administration.

The son of Mike and Karel Black, he earned a bachelor’s degree at SIU-C, where he fished for that college’s club for four years.

Black’s team caught one fish, weighing 1.10 pounds, on Sunday.

Clayton Black (left) and Colten Hunter

Colten Hunter fishes for a Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville during the Illinois Collegiate Bass Tournament on Sunday.

Clayton Black fishes for a Northern Illinois University team at the Illinois Collegiate Bass Tourney on Sunday at Vandalia Lake.

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