ON ISLAND LAKE RESERVOIR, Minn. _ Jason Herstad cast left, Zach Carson cast right and they started working a line of old, underwater tree stumps along a mid-lake island, twitching their soft plastic bass baits back to the boat.
It didn't take long for Carson, standing in the bow and running the electric trolling motor, to tag into the first smallmouth.
Herstad quickly reeled in his line, grabbed the net and landed Carson's fish, about 13 inches long, just big enough to weigh in the high school team fishing tournament the Hermantown High School seniors were competing in.
They plopped the bass in the livewell and started casting again with little lost time. There were many more fish to be caught.
"Watch the trolling motor ... Start thinking ahead where you want to be next," said Ouitdee Carson, Zach's father and team captain. The captain is the mandatory adult on board who operates the boat at high speeds and offers advice, but who otherwise must not help the student anglers.
"He gets lost in the fishing part sometimes and forgets to watch the trolling motor," Ouitdee Carson said of his son's intensity.
Carson and Herstad are members of the Hermantown high school fishing club, there are two other Hermantown teams in the club, part of a growing navy of high school bass anglers competing in tournaments across Minnesota. There are now high school bass fishing clubs from International Falls to Rochester, representing an estimated 150 schools with more than 2,000 students involved and more are coming each summer. Dozens of those schools send teams to competitive tournaments. Boys and girls compete in the same events.
"It's fun because you get to compete, but you can still enjoy the fishing," Carson said.
"And bass are way more fun than walleye," Herstad chimed in.
In addition to Hermantown's three teams, there were 20 other tournament boats on Island Lake north of Duluth that day, with student anglers from Duluth's combined team, Wrenshall, Eveleth-Gilbert, Grand Rapids, Northwestern (Maple, Wis.) and Lakeville, Minn.
The seven, two-student teams from Northwestern's club were competing in their first tournament as an organized club. (Northwestern's club is recognized by the school, Hermantown's is not yet.)
"This is all new to us, but it's great ... We'd have to go down to Madison or LaCrosse or something to find a Wisconsin tournament, so it's nice we can get in on this," said Greg Nelson, a Northwestern teacher the fishing club's adviser.
Nelson signed on to lead the effort when his two sons wanted to try competitive fishing. In the first year at Northwestern there are 14 active members willing to pay the $50 membership fee that gets them into regional tournaments, a Bass Angler Sportsman Society membership and liability insurance.
Evan Harris and Dylan Niemi left no question as to their high school _ they had bold printed fishing team jerseys in the Eveleth-Gilbert school colors of gold and black, with a Golden Bear logo on the front and their names emblazoned on the back. (Like professional tournament anglers, and unlike any other high school sport, the fishing jerseys of high school anglers are festooned with various sponsors, businesses willing to donate to the clubs to defray the costs.)
It was their first tournament of the season.
"It's great to have something fun to do in the summer and still be with guys from school," Harris said.
Isaac Honkola of Hermantown agreed.
"It's something new," he said of high school fishing teams, noting fishing is good by itself but adding the competition of a tournament elevates the challenge. "You have a goal while you're out there."
The Duluth combined team had two boats at Island Lake, both representing students from the Marshall School. But team captain Doug Pirila said students from any local school can join the club.
"Any high school student is welcome to join us. We can get them into one of our clubs or help them start their own," Pirila said.
