High School Fishing Makes the Grade

12-pound bass kicks off 2016 HSF season

Success isn’t measured in As or Bs, but rather in pounds and ounces.

Jacob Smith and Daniel Clark are typical teenagers, at least in everything except bass fishing. In that, they are above average, as the two juniors from Travelers Rest High School in South Carolina proved in the TBF/FLW High School Fishing Florida Open held Jan. 17 on Lake Okeechobee.

There, Clark caught a bass that weighed 12 pounds, 1 ounce to anchor a winning stringer of 26 pounds, 8 ounces. Clark’s fish not only was the heaviest bass ever weighed in during a High School Fishing event, it was larger than anything caught during the Costa FLW Series tournament contested the previous three days on Okeechobee, and ranks among the top 30 heaviest bass ever entered in an FLW event. Clark and Smith won the Open by 16 pounds ahead of second place.

For its efforts, the pair was awarded with a guaranteed entry in the Southeastern Conference Championship on Lake Cumberland in September. Do well enough there, and Clark and Smith advance to the 2017 High School Fishing National Championship.

In fairness to the veterans who participated in the FLW Series tournament and caught less and smaller bass than Clark and Smith, the high-schoolers didn’t actually fish in Okeechobee. Because gale-force winds were forecast, for safety’s sake HSF Director Mark Gintert sought and gained permission from Florida officials to move the event to a 36-mile stretch of the Kissimmee River, which feeds Okeechobee.

Still, what to make of the fact that Clark and Smith had never laid eyes on the Kissimmee River, much less fished it? They practiced on Okeechobee the day before the tournament before learning that it had to be switched to the more protected Kissimmee River. Their performance on that body of water reflected that they had done their homework, and made good use of an opportunity to excel.

Mission accomplished, then, for High School Fishing. The experience of the two South Carolina youngsters in the first major HSF event of the new year reflects that developers and participants are on target as far as achieving some of the goals established for the program when it was begun six years ago: to provide youngsters with a wholesome outlet for their energies and cultivate a sense of purpose grounded in teamwork and self-discipline.

High School Fishing has become wildly popular on campuses across the country. In 2010, the first year after HSF was developed through a partnership of The Bass Federation and FLW, the National Championship tournament on Lake Dardanelle involved 76 high school teams from 18 states. Today, there are almost 20,000 participants representing more than 1,000 high schools in 45 states.

Besides state tournaments in 2016, High School Fishing will stage five Opens, five Conference Championships and the National Championship, where 12 teams will vie for a winner’s purse of $10,000 in scholarship money. The 2016 championship is set for Table Rock Lake in April.

“I think the biggest catalyst to the growth has been the excitement generated by tournaments and friendly competition. It’s attracted a lot of kids who otherwise couldn’t be in team sports,” notes Gintert. “In High School Fishing, there are no barriers. It doesn’t matter how fast you can run or how big you are. That’s what’s exciting about it. And between TBF and FLW, we have more manpower and equipment to make it happen. It’s been a perfect fit.”

The club at Travelers Rest High School was started two years ago, mainly through the efforts of enthusiastic students and a few parents with experience in tournament fishing – at least on a local level. Daniel Clark grew up fishing with his father, Bryan, while Jacob Smith’s father, Nathan, passed along his interest in fishing for anything and everything to his son. Nathan served as the pair’s boat captain in the Florida High School Fishing Open.

“I never was big into bass fishing until my freshman year and found out about the club,” says Jacob, 17. “My dad really got me involved in fishing in a general sort of way, but I liked the idea of fishing with some of the other guys from school. Another thing I enjoy now is the great camaraderie. Everybody wants to win, but they’re just excited to be there and put their best foot forward.”

The club currently has 41 members, with about two dozen of them being active participants in boat tournaments. However, not every member has access to a boat, or a parent who can serve as a boat captain. Clubs across the country have similar challenges, and local TBF members help out as they can. Clubs also have the option of staging bank-fishing tournaments and other events where boats aren’t required.

Club members attend monthly meetings in which they might host guest speakers, as well as plan projects such as setting up line-recycling stations at local boat ramps, picking up litter at launch sites and public parks, and sinking discarded Christmas trees for fish habitat. They also visit area elementary schools and conduct seminars where they teach younger children about fish and rudimentary fishing skills such as how to tie knots.

Jacob and Daniel started fishing together last fall. Prior to that, they had other fishing partners who have since graduated. Last year, Daniel and previous partner Oakley Connor won the South Carolina High School State Championship for Travelers Rest, whose student body is 1,198.

“Fishing has kept me out of trouble, and I imagine it’s kept a lot of kids out of trouble. The TBF and FLW do a good job putting on tournaments, and it makes you feel like you’re in something worthwhile,” notes Jacob. “It keeps our minds focused. There might be all sorts of good things come out of it, depending on how well you apply yourself and how far with it you want to go.”

“I’m right there with Jacob,” adds Daniel. “The way I look at it, if you’re out there fishing you’re not out there doing anything wrong. It gives kids who might not be able to join any other kind of high school sport a chance to get involved in something that’s important.”

To learn more about the High School Fishing program, and starting a club, visit highschoolfishing.org.