(Editor’s note: The following article originally appeared in the 2009 spring edition of Currents magazine, a publication of Winona State University in Minnesota. The story centers around student Zac Cassill, who recently walked away with a $15,000 payday after recording a second-place finish in the Co-angler Division at the 2009 Walmart Open on Beaver Lake in Rogers, Ark. FLWOutdoors.com would like to thank Winona State University and Currents magazine for allowing us to reprint the story).
When Zachary Cassill is taking notes in Pasteur Hall, or bent over the sediment transport flume in the Science Laboratory Center, it’s hard to distinguish him from any other Winona State University student.
But when he steps into a boat, Cassill is instantly recognizable to the thousands of fans who follow professional bass fishing.
An ecology and geology double major at Winona State, Cassill fishes with the Walmart FLW Tour. The tour is one of the country’s most prestigious fishing tournaments, with individual events culminating in wildly popular “weigh-ins” and offering thousands of dollars in prize money.
Cassill travels around the United States and Mexico to about 40 events each year. Event standings are judged on the basis of the weight of a competitor’s catch and points are compiled over the season. In 2008, Cassill’s largest day’s catch was 25 pounds, 4 ounces at an event in Falcon Lake, Texas.
Cassill is serious about fishing, and Winona State’s geology program and its proximity to the Mississippi River were key factors when he chose a university.
“Winona has a good geology program, probably one of the best in the Midwest,” the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native said. “I can fish in the fall, spring, and summer, and I can study about the Mississippi River in school.”
A family friend, who he fondly remembers as Poppa, taught him the ropes of fishing when he was only a toddler. “I’ve been fishing from the time I was 2 years old. [Poppa’s] grandson, Jonathan, got me into bass fishing when I was 12 or 13.”
Cassill recalls many big moments in his fishing career, but one of his favorite memories is the watershed class taught by Toby Dogwiler, assistant professor of Geoscience at Winona State. In the class, students examine all of the variables in a given watershed, or the area of land that catches precipitation and feeds it into a marsh, stream, river, lake or groundwater.
Dogwiler said that Cassill’s class spent considerable time discussing the floods that devastated southeast Minnesota in August 2007. “We talked about what controls how big a flood is, what is going on in the rest of the watershed, types of vegetation, types of land use, and types of typography,” Dogwiler said.
Many Geoscience students and students in other disciplines throughout the university utilize the flume lab to understand basic geologic phenomena. Open via large windows to the public atrium in the Science Laboratory Center, the flume lab boasts six stream tables measuring 7 feet by 3 feet; a large stream table that is 12 feet by 5 feet; and a 16-foot-long sediment transport table.
Students like Cassill are able to model and visualize stream and watershed processes, sedimentation and erosion, contamination transport, wave mechanics, and other processes that affect geological formation and bodies of water.
“Students can control variables in the flume lab that they can’t control in the real world,” explained Dogwiler.
“We wanted to build a lab that provides undergraduates with the same kind of learning experiences that are typically only found in a research institution,” said Cathy Summa, professor and chair of Geoscience who played the leading role in bringing the flume to Winona State. “Students learn best by experimenting, exploring and chasing after the things they are curious about.”
“The point is to not just bring the river indoors, but to create a way for students and the Winona community to visualize the landscapes in which they live and to discover the interaction with the river and the evolution of the landscape throughout time,” continued Summa.
Cassill said that his geology and ecology majors and work in the flume lab carry over to his fishing career. “I’m really interested in hydrology and that ties into my fishing: looking at how fish interact with the way the current flows,” Cassill said. “The ecology helps me understand the ecosystem in which fish live and I have a better understanding of fish behavior.”
“It’s obvious that a lot of what draws his attention are things that are water related,” said Dogwiler of Cassill, a student in several of his courses. “Once he’s intrigued by the question, he really becomes engaged in the subject.”
Cassill spends much of his free time traveling to fishing events, but said he appreciates the close-knit feeling in the geoscience program. “It really feels like a family,” he said.
The faculty works hard to make it that way, said Summa. “We spend so much time on intense work. Students are often in the lab on nights and weekends, so the community that develops is unique among geology programs. It’s something I remember from being an undergraduate and it’s what we try to foster for our own students and among our graduates.”
Cassill would like to create a similar environment for students who enjoy fishing. He is considering using his own experience on the Walmart FLW Tour to help create a Winona State bass fishing league. “I don’t have a lot of time because I travel so much,” Cassill said, “but I’d love to be a mentor.”