"This is what we do, this is what we love. A good saying is: a fish is wet and they don't care! So we go fishing," said the Director of College Fishing Kevin Hunt.
"Its freezing out here!" shouted one fisherman from the lake.
"This morning when we got up it was freezing. Ice pellets, even some snow came around 8:00 am. But these guys were fishing out there," said Hunt.
It was less than ideal conditions out on Smith Mountain Lake for the first round of the National Guard FLW College Fishing Northern Division tournament.
"It was tough. A tough cold day," said fisherman Jonathan Coholich.
Jonathan Coholich and Richard Smith made the trip from La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pa. Watching the weather all week, they thought they were headed to the sunny south.
"We're looking at it going, oh we're going to be in 80 degrees; and then the closer in the week it went, it went down," said Coholich.
"It put a lump in my stomach when saw 40 degrees down here!" said Smith.
The changing weather made conditions on the lake tough.
"It was really cold out there. That snow started coming down, we had our gloves out and everything. Our hands are freezing," said Mark Keller, from Wayne State University in Detroit.
The one source of heat though, was the competition. With a $10,000 dollar grand prize handed out Sunday for the biggest fish, and the chance to advance to the regional championship.
"Definitely when you are catching fish it gets a lot easier. It's a lot easier to stay warm when you catch fish. When you are not catching fish it can get miserable, for sure," said Hunt.
Virginia Tech placed fourth in the competition and is one of five teams that will advance to the regional championship.
Hampden-Sydney College, also from Virginia, placed first.
