Taylor Lipscomb casts his spinning treble over a pond in Alton Baker Park and immediately gets a tug on the other end as he reels in. He shores the fish, then holds up what looks more or less like a hunchbacked trout.
He says something about genetic mutations in farmed fish and how the lack of a chromosome causes the muscle to bunch near the dorsal fin.
“This one’s not for eating,” he says, tossing it back into the water.
The bass fishing team, on a tip from City of Eugene Parks and Open Space, went out for their first practice of the season after hearing the park’s ponds and streams were being
replenished with rainbow trouts.
Bass fishing among college students is a pastime on the rise. ESPN and Versus television networks cover their regional and national championships; a win at nationals comes with a $100,000 prize and a bass-fishing boat.
Last year, the University’s team did well, with one pair of fishermen, Ross Richards and Reed Frazier, placing fourth at their regional competition. The win granted them a spot at the national tournament in Tennessee in June and an $8,000 prize.
“Starting about two to three years ago is when they started those tournaments and since then, college fishing has taken off,” graduate student Cody Herman said. “It’s on Versus, ESPN, Fox Sports. It’s gotten a lot of popularity these last few years.”
The bass team is expanding, but still has room to grow.
Most of the club’s money is fundraised through T-shirt sales. Herman recalled his undergrad days when he couldn’t even spark any interest on campus for a fishing club.
“When I was here for undergraduate, my buddy and I tried to put together a fishing team, but at the time there was no collegiate bass fishing trial,” Herman said.
When Shimano, a cycling and fishing gear manufacturer and distributor, decided to cut their international marketing sector down to two people, Herman got let go from the firm in Irvine, Calif. He decided to come back to Eugene to fish and take classes.
“Irvine was a concrete jungle,” he said “Fishing gets you outside, and that’s something I missed.”
Herman said it was the competition that he wanted to return to. He said that events provide more excitement than one might think. Teams of two fishermen mount their bass boats early in the morning. These boats are near “swift boat” status.
“Bass boats are intense. They have like a 300-horsepower motor and an out-board engine. They go up to 80 mph,” club coordinator Carter Troughton said.
But with a faster boat you can get to the best spots, and when you’re competing against the bayou boys from the deep South, every detail makes a difference. After the initial “blast-off,” contestants are up against a time limit to catch the six largest fish. Fish are kept alive in the “live well,” a holding tank from which contestants can exchange a larger, newly caught fish for a smaller fish caught earlier in the day.
“The weigh-in is where all the drama happens,” Troughton said.
Contestants who weigh in larger fish first are put on the “hot seat,” the first-place stand on the podium. If other contestants weigh in larger than the team on the hot seat, the hot seat team is ousted. Such was the fate of Troughton at the regional championship.
With only a few teams left to weigh in and a fifth-place spot needed to advance to nationals, Troughton was on edge as he and his brother stood in fifth. Richards and Frazier went last that morning and were one of the final teams to weigh in.
They placed fourth, bumping the Troughton brothers off the podium.
“When it’s your teammate that knocks you off, you’re bummed, but you’re still happy for them and you cheer them on,” Troughton said.
Practice ended with Troughton reading a letter he had just received from Argentina. It was from a 14-year-old boy who had watched the team on television and was writing to lend his support.
With a fan base that stretches across hemispheres, the team’s future looks promising. And for those just looking for a new way to avoid the schoolwork grind, the group is open to newcomers. Any student can go down to Alton Baker Park, and the team is more than happy to let you join in on a cast or two.
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