What do football, basketball, and bass fishing all have in common?

All three are highly competitive and physically demanding sports.

“You could say ‘It’s just bass fishing’, but people don’t actually know how big this sport is in Illinois,” junior Ryan Park said. “It flies under the radar to lots of high schoolers, but there are thousands of high school bass fishermen in this state.”

After last year’s summer season, Park, one out of these thousands of fishermen, stood victorious beside senior partner Tommy McDonald.

“Winning state last year meant the world to me,” Park said. “Just knowing everything you have worked for has paid off; it was the most overjoyed moment I’ve ever had.”

According to McDonald, he was quite surprised the two won after only catching three bass.

“I was mostly in shock,” McDonald said. “I couldn’t believe we actually won, and the feat we accomplished didn’t set in until later.”

Although the pair only caught three bass, the total weight came in at 16.54 lbs (Results for the tournament are composed by total weight of fish caught).

“We fished on a part of the lake that nobody really fished on, because we felt that’s where the biggest bass were,” Park said. “Everything went right for us that day. I even caught my personal best bass, which was also the biggest bass in the state tournament, at 7.67 lbs.”

Last year’s state tournament at Clinton Lake, Clinton, Illinois, hosted the top 45 boats (two fishermen per boat) in Illinois. The number of boats only increased as the top five boats from each state in America qualified  for the Costa Bassmaster High School National Championship in Kentucky Lake, Paris, Tennessee.  

“We finished 170th,” Park said. “Kentucky Lake was very new to us, and we only had two days to fish on the lake. It was very satisfying knowing that we all qualified for Nationals though.”

According to Park, in order to progress through these tournaments, creating a strong bond of is one of the most important aspects to achieve.

“Tommy and I have known each other since I was in sixth grade,” Park said. “We have fun on the boat, making jokes and keeping each other’s heads up when the bass aren’t biting. But, when it comes down to the fishing part, we get concentrated and focus on the task at hand.”

According to McDonald, it all starts with practice. The two, along with the team, engage in various training regiments.

“Daily fishing practice includes reading about different patterns for different weather conditions,” McDonald said. “We also organize fishing gear, and study bodies of water.”

As Spring finally approaches, and the weather begins to warm up, the 2018 fishing season is officially underway.

“We want to keep that momentum going,” Park said. “We want to repeat what we did in state, along with another national qualification. However, we want to get even more boats [from South] into the state championship.”