Since their sophomore year of high school in Grand Rapids, Minn., Easton Fothergill and Nick Dumke have been tournament partners. Now as juniors at Alabama’s University of Montevallo, they added an impressive accomplishment to their ledgers.
Dumke and Fothergill claimed the 2023 Bassmaster College Series Team of the Year title with 937 points.
“It still does not feel real,” Dumke said. “I don’t think it will be that way for a while. It has been something we dreamed of since high school. We talked about it before we even knew what our future was going to be. To get it done, we are very grateful for it.”
They edged out their Montevallo teammates Tyler Cory and Scott Sledge by just six points while Campbellsville University’s Morgan Miracle and Jake Thornbury finished third.
With their Team of the Year title, Fothergill and Dumke automatically qualify for the College Classic Bracket, an individual, head-to-head style tournament that sends the winner to the 2024 Bassmaster Classic.
Fothergill, a former member of the Bassmaster All-American Fishing Team, has watched the past three College Bracket champions – Louis Monetti, Tristan McCormick and Trevor McKinney – make their mark on the Classic stage and said he is excited about the possibility of being the next college angler to achieve that distinction.
“Seeing the past winners on stage, I was sitting in the crowd thinking that would be so cool. For us to be the next guys is unbelievable,” he said.
While a top goal for their junior season, Dumke and Fothergill tried not to think about Team of the Year once the season got going.
“The race was so tight all year long. We tried not to even think about it and not let it mess up the way we were fishing. We just wanted to focus on the moment, just go fishing and not let that idea get in our heads,” Dumke said.
Opening the season with a 17th at the Harris Chain of Lakes in January, Dumke and Fothergill finished 16th at Cherokee Lake before notching their best finish of the season in mid-April, a 5th at the James River.
Coming from the northern part of the country, it has taken a little bit of time for Dumke and Fothergill to dial in the southern fisheries. But the chemistry they have built since joining forces in high school, along with the multispecies nature of their home lakes, has helped break down that learning curve.
“We can give a lot of credit to being from there,” Dumke said. “Some states just have river systems and some just have a couple of lakes. What’s crazy about Minnesota is we have so many different types of lakes. We have crystal clear smallmouth lakes and then dirty, shallow largemouth lakes. We have been able to carry some of what we did growing up and apply it down here.”
