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College Bass Fishing - 04-12-2012
College Bass Fishing: An Evolving Pastime by Brent Kirkland
Watch the video College Bass Fishing: An Evolving Pastime by Brent Kirkland
Take-off
It’s Saturday in the middle of fall. Some students paint their bodies for the game, others prepare for tailgates, but for two engineering students at the University of Nevada, Reno there’s no game to be watched. Their gridiron exists on an open lake just as the sun peeks over the Arizona desert on Saguaro Lake, resting 30 miles outside of Phoenix.
It’s the 2011 FLW National Guard college bass fishing Western Regional tournament. Brandon Murphy, the Wolf Pack’s team captain and his partner, Jared “Jed” Malone, zip up their life vests and tie on their preferred lure, waiting to receive their assigned pro to take them out. Sight of the shore is blocked from the dock. There are 40 boats preparing to launch.
“It’s 6:45 in the morning, you’re cold, and the next thing you know you’re going 80 miles an hour. Then, you start feeling it,” Malone said.
Murphy and Malone are the only contestants representing the University —a school in only its sixth year in college bass fishing, and they have never placed in the required top-five teams to advance to nationals. In 2010, they placed 11th at the western regionals, the best finish in the Nevada program’s young history.
Casting a passion
For many competitive bass fishers, their experiences begin on a small lake, with their fathers, in a small boat, learning techniques passed down through generations.
Jeff Bumgarner is the captain of the North Carolina State Basspack. A program that has won two national titles (the last in 2009), the Basspack has earned a polished reputation in Raleigh, North Carolina. For Bumgarner, childhood memories of tossing the pigskin or a game of catch do not stick. Rather, it’s the times he shared with his elders that he believes made him into the angler and man he is today.
“Since I was 2 years old, my daddy and granddaddy took me out to Gaston Lake every summer,” Bumgarner said. “Granddaddy died at 97 years old. It’s those memories I have fishing with him that drive me to win.”
Since he was in grade school, Bumgarner has fished tournaments at Jordan Lake, nestled in the pines 30 minutes south of Chapel Hill and the same distance east of Raleigh. He grew up there and it was the place where he discovered his talent.
“I’ve won dozens of times at home there,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you a number.”
Like Bumgarner, Josh Hooks, a 2011 regional qualifier for the Basspack, also has two decades of experience in bass fishing. While stories of young athletes playing a certain sport for several years cause them to become exhausted and inglorious of the game they once cherished, Hooks’ drive continues to grow with each cast.
“I just love the competitiveness of bass fishing,” Hooks said. "It’s the best-kept secret in sports. I mean, to win $10,000 when we won the regional at Lake Erie, doing something you love to do, it makes it the best.”
Hooks plans to join the pro-circuit after he graduates, the first Basspack angler to go pro.
Feeling it
The desert sun has risen well above the cactus-riddled hills surrounding Saguaro Lake. Yet again, another distant finish appears inevitable for the Nevada duo. A top-five finish would mean at least $3,700 and a paid trip to Murray, Ky., for the national championship, but with just one fish caught in the first day, the likelihood is low.
It’s been a journey for Murphy and Malone this season. Being Nevada’s lone pair, making the trips to the Delta on the outskirts of Sacramento, Calif., they reminisce about their third-place finish there earlier in the year when Murphy bagged an 8 pound bass: his biggest thus far. They also netted $1,500 for their performance.
“A bad day on the water is better than any day working,” Murphy says as the still water begins to ripple. The line tenses. Murphy tugs his reel.
The fish will be the first of four Murphy and Malone will catch on the final day of qualifying. Their catch will total 8 pounds, 6 ounces.
Reeling in success
In all of its types, fishing relies on luck, but much less than most would think. The Basspack has not won national titles and earned a glorified reputation off of luck. It takes a certain level of commitment and strategy to have the highest opportunity for success.
“It’s all about practice and knowing the lake,” Bumgarner said. “[In a tournament] once you put on the water, you got to know where to go. What we teach at the Basspack is all about getting that quick limit and then cuddling up with that last big fish.”
FLW rules allow fishers to keep six fish, but only five are used for weigh-ins. The total weight for the five fish is then measured.
Knowing the lake is the key to winning.
“A good fisher has four or five good spots in his or her arsenal,” Bumgarner said. “They go to their best to start, and then hit the others.”
As in any other sport, however, sometimes the game plan must be readjusted in order to win.
At his home water at Jordan Lake, Bumgarner and his former teammate were in contention on the final day of the 2010 FLW Northern Division Regional. Midway into that day, with just one fish caught between them, their boat came to an abrupt stop and the crunching from the motor was deafening.
They had motored over a rock, crushing the propeller. They paddled the boat to shore and attempted to somehow put the mangled metal back together. It was hopeless. They were ready to cut the line on capturing their yearlong dreams of winning a regional tournament, but the pro on their boat quickly appeared with a spare motor. Like the pit crew at a NASCAR race, the Basspack captain and his partner reassembled the boat and were ready to finish their chase at glory. But as the day wore on, they had less than two hours to catch four fish.
“At that point we knew we had to hammer down,” Bumgarner said. “If we had not already been in the top-five, we don’t win.”
Bumgarner and his partner caught four more fish, each among the top-five biggest caught in the tournament. The largest was 6.5 pounds–the top catch of the regional.
Like the fish in the lake, however, adversity comes in all shapes and sizes. One of them: rivalry.
The Basspack has always competed with northern region teams in FLW tournaments, but next season they will join the Southeastern Division including teams such as Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina and the two-time defending national champions Florida.
“Rivalry is a big part of college bass fishing, but it’s always friendly,” Bumgarner said. “Virginia Tech are our best friends, but when we’re on the water we want to beat the snot out of them and them of us. No matter what, we will all go to the bar together after.”
“It’s like Duke and [North] Carolina in basketball,” he said. “They beat each other on the court, but they remain friends off.”
Tournaments always remain serious on the water, but easing the tension of competition is another part of the experience of college bass fishing.
Hooks remembers a time after a successful tournament for both the Basspack and Virginia Tech. Anglers from other schools asked for their secrets to success.
“We told them they wanted to use a Carolina Ring buzz bait. They didn’t know it was one of the hardest baits to use on that lake. We’d also tell them they want to start fishing with a Carolina Whompus Cat. They didn’t know it isn’t real.”
With the combination of preparation, ambition and a little laughter, the Basspack has become an icon in the college fishing world. As the popularity of the sport grows, anglers are beginning to feel the recognition.
At a typical sold-out venue at an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball matchup in 2009 at Raleigh, North Carolina State was hosting Maryland. During halftime, the Basspack was brought onto court to recognize their accomplishment after winning the Northern Regional. A jubilated 20,000 fans stood in unison, giving a cheering ovation that lasted 10 minutes.
“We had known we did a good job at representing our school, but the feeling was bone-chilling. It was just indescribable,” Hooks said. “Now, it’s normal to go out somewhere two or three hours away and people stop and ask you, ‘hey you’re part of that Basspack.’”
Weighing in
Murphy and Malone dock their boat, unloading the five fish they intend to weigh. They wait as roughly 20 pairings go in front of them. They begin to feel it. They know it. They got it. Finally, they weigh-in: 8 pounds and 6 ounces. The smiles on their faces are the symbol of happiness and personal achievement. That is until the last of four Chico State teams weighs-in: 8 pounds, 7 ounces.
“When you realize how small an ounce is, you wonder why,” Murphy said.
It was like losing a playoff football game by an inch. Nevada’s duo was perplexed. It was incomprehensible how they could come so far from September until now, just to lose — losing a ticket to nationals in Kentucky and $3,700.
“It was unbelievable, but there was no animosity,” Malone said. “Bass fishing is like golf. It’s gentlemanly.”
The sixth-place finish marked the best season for the small Nevada program that was inaugurated in 2005. The taste of success reveals progress for a growing school in an undoubtedly growing sport. Bass fishing, a sport that still is rooted in the southeastern region of the United States, is beginning to gain popularity to each corner of the country. The difference is that teams on the West Coast have less exposure to bass lakes.
Nevada’s only bass fishing exists south of Las Vegas on Lake Mead, an eight hour drive from Reno or three hours west, along Sacramento’s Delta.
“It’s just the perception,” Hooks said. “When we think of the West Coast we think of going to Las Vegas and the beach. I think there’s just a larger amount of quality bass lakes on the East Coast. That’s why there’s more popularity out here.”
While many would not debate the fact that the quality of fishing in the southeast is unparalleled, the sport of college bass fishing is beginning to parallel that of other sports.
“I’d like to see it keep getting bigger,” Murphy said. “The competition is growing into where there are high school tournaments now and it will probably eventually grow competitively into more youth tournaments.”
As bass fishing still is a college club sport nationwide, as popularity enriches and the youth movement in bass fishing expands, it may be time to consider the sport of bass fishing more than just an American pastime.
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