But for a dead fish penalty, he could easily have locked up second place, and his skill and coolness under pressure gave him a legitimate shot at possibly winning the Cup.

“I’ve watched the Forrest Wood Cup since I was little so I knew the support the professional fishermen had and the admiration of the fan base, but I did not understand the magnitude of it all until I was there,” said the Greenwood, S.C., pro angler. “I was signing hats with Hank Parker and Larry Nixon. It was an unreal experience.”

Cobb weighed a four-day total of 47 pounds, 11 ounces, to finish a scant 2 ounces behind Ramie Colson Jr., of Cadiz, Ky., in second place. Brad Knight of Lancing, Tenn., won the title with 4 pounds, 1 ounce, more total weight than Cobb, but the Greenwood angler was in contention from the first day starting gun – sitting 3^rd at the first day weigh-in, 4^th on the second day and 5^th the third day before climbing back into 3^rd place on the final day.

To some fans Cobb may have “come out of nowhere,” but his success the first time on the big stage of pro fishing was no surprise to Andy Wicker of Prosperity, S.C, Cobb’s former teammate on the Clemson University Fishing Team.

“I’ve always known he was good enough to compete at that level,” said Wicker, a successful tournament angler in his own right. “It was just a matter of him getting the opportunities to take advantage of it, which he finally did. Hopefully, that was a large enough platform to launch his professional career.”

Or perhaps sustain that career since he has made a pretty successful launch over his two years on the pro circuit.

“Brandon Cobb is a beast,” said Joe Opager, FLW director of public relations. “We’re going to be hearing his name quite a bit in the fishing world over the next few years.”

Once he arrived at Lake Ouachita and got to practice on the lake, Cobb knew he was in for a tough tournament – “a grind” – but he welcomed the challenge.

“After practice I knew it would be difficult to catch five fish a day. I did not think a lot of people would have 20 fish in four days, so I was going to make sure I had a limit every day.”

His primary spot was a creek he was sharing with a couple of other anglers, including the eventual winner, Knight.

“The first day I caught all my fish out of that creek,” Cobb said. “There were no spectator boats and we all did well.”

But the next day the creek filled up with spectator boats. Brad Knight, the eventual winner, and Mark Daniels Jr. of Tuskeegee, Ala., who finished 9^th in the Cup, were in the very back of the creek, so the boats did not encroach on them. But Cobb was fishing about halfway back in the creek and the constant traffic ruined fishing there for him.

“The creek definitely had the potential to win the Cup because Brad won it there, but the place I had did not have the potential,” Cobb said. “I knew I had to go look for something new.”

He targeted grassy areas in main lake pockets and also targeted schooling fish and continued to weigh in solid limits the next three days.

Cobb caught his fish off wood targets on shallow flats on a Knight’s Custom Lures buzzbait with a white or green pumpkin Zoom Horny Toad as a trailer.

“If the water had any chop on it, I went with the buzzbait and toad combination,” he says. “But when it got dead-slick, I’d go to just a Horny Toad to keep it more subtle.”

Cobb also ran up in the rivers each day with a Lucky Craft Gunfish, which helped put a few better fish on the scales.

If there was any part of his game that he would like to improve on it would be hooking proficiency, he said.

“The first two days I fished perfectly clean, never lost a single fish, but the last two days did not go so well. I had 12 bites the third day and only boated six of them. I could have done a lot better the third day.”

That run of bad luck carried over to the fourth day. On the final day he lost the first three fish he hooked. But that probably did not cost him the title, he said.

“Even if I had fished perfectly clean all week I may not have won – but it would have been so close. I definitely could have had second place. I weighed two dead fish the first day and one on the third day. That three-fourths of a pound (penalty) cost me second place.”

But he will never forget the experience of fishing at the highest level, he said.

“That was the first time I ever had spectator boats following me in a tournament. It was pretty cool to know people were following me and actually cared if I caught a fish.”

There was an added bonus to the spectator following, he added.

“On the last day my girlfriend was in a friend’s boat and she saw me catch a good 2 ½-pound fish. That was really cool.”

His former teammate at Clemson, Andy Wicker, said he hopes to join Cobb at the high level of tournament fishing someday – and maybe have a chance to beat him there.

“Until then, I’ll be rooting him on to the top,” Wicker said.