February 15, 2019 at 4:30 p.m.
natural reaction
The coolest sport at school
natural reaction
By Jacob Friede-
I witnessed this on Saturday, Feb. 9, on Lake Minocqua when a crew of fishermen from Lakeland Union High School showed up with a pail full of bluegills.
The guys, there for a weigh-in, were the LUHS ice fishing team, part of a growing trend of outdoor competitive high school sports.
The team, as part of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Fishing Association, fishes against other schools in qualifying tournaments, such as the one on Lake Minocqua sponsored by Kurt's Island Bait Shop, leading up to a state championship.
This year's championship will be held out of La Crosse on the Mississippi River, pools seven and eight, on Feb. 15 and 16.
The teams which competed in the freezing cold on Lake Minocqua on Saturday, which, in addition to Lakeland, included Three Lakes, Chequamegon, and D.C. Everest, will all qualify for the state tournament no matter how they did.
For Thunderbird anglers, it was a mixed day.
"We had some guys on some hot bluegills," coach Matt Dassow said. "It was a lot of fun, they were all on different little spots there. We had groups of two or three guys positioned in different spots and they were really doing what they were good at. We had a few guys who were good at tip-up fishing there hitting along the weed lines there and then we had other guys who were good at jigging, so we had them up in the weeds and then next to the weeds."
It was a different story for the tip-up team.
"It was pretty rough. It was pretty slow," Brandon Slavinsky said.
But though action was low, when a fish finally did hit, it was a lunker.
Patrick Melms brought in a 20-inch largemouth bass on a tip-up and it fought like a pike.
"It was 11 o'clock. Melms said. "I was expecting northern."
It would be the biggest bass caught in the tournament.
Apart from actual catch totals and scores though, which are based on inches and species, coach Darrow says his anglers are advancing their knowledge of their sport, and enjoying themselves while doing so.
"It's great to have the boys out there," the first-year coach said. "We had lunch on the ice, making up some nice brats and burgers and the kids were having a great time out there fishing and learning a few things about jigging and about tip-up fishing, how they should go about positioning, and getting more involved in the sport, really."
The team members, who, like all athletes, must display a degree of toughness, stamina, and skill to succeed, all have some experience fishing.
"For the most part they know what they're doing out there," Darrow said. "It's just tweaking little things like where they need to be positioned in putting up their tip-ups and where fish transition throughout the day as the sun goes up and sun goes down."
This X's and O's approach used to attack the lake led the Thunderbirds to a second place overall finish for the tournament.
Their 181.36 total inches trailed only Three Lakes, who caught 257.875 inches worth of fish. Chequamegon finished third with 42.25 inches, and D.C. Everest finished in fourth with 0 fish caught.
In those brutal temperatures though, all of the anglers, regardless of the result, could safely say that on that day they were the coolest athletes on campus.
Jacob Friede may be reached at jacob@
lakelandtimes.com or [email protected]
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