Iowa high school anglers make waves at national level

ANDERSON, S.C. — High school bass fishing is getting big. Really big.

For many of those young anglers, the goal is to qualify for nationals and test their skills against the best of the best from around the country.

That’s how five Iowa teams found themselves among more than 400 total threesomes (each team includes an adult boat captain or coach) at the June 19-22 High School Fishing World Finals and National Championship nearly 1,000 miles from home on renowned Lake Hartwell.

The World Finals are open to any Student Angler Federation members while the National Championship consists of the top 10 percent of high school teams from all SAF-sanctioned events. National Championship qualifiers automatically are entered in both events to fish for a share of $3.2 million in scholarships and prizes.

It was an eye-opening experience for the Iowa contingent.

“The rules meeting, especially, was a little intimidating because you see everybody’s family and coaches with their jerseys and all the vendors there trying to sell stuff,” said Lane Weichman, who was part of the two Cedar Falls High School teams that qualified for nationals. “We walked in and sat down at the rules meeting and Edwin Evers (Oklahoma pro bass angler with a Bassmasters Classic win and more than $3 million in career earnings) and his kid sat a chair or two away from us.

“It was cool, but it was also like, ‘Oh, man. These guys know what’s going on.’”

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The Cedar Falls teams, coached by Carter Moore, consisted of Weichman and Carter’s son Kael Moore, along with brothers Ethan and Ty Timmerman. In addition, three teams qualified from the Central Iowa Student Anglers coached by Jeremy King — AJ Draper of Linden and Emmett King of Panora, Cole Carstens of Bagley and Nolan Ponstein of Panora, and Gavin Lindstrom of Panora and Blake Schwartz of Guthrie Center.

One thing they knew going into the competition — bass in Lake Hartwell aren’t the same as bass in Iowa’s lakes and rivers. While there are some largemouth bass present, spotted bass dominate the fishery. The forage is different and in some regards, so is bass behavior.

“In Hartwell, their main forage is blueback herring, so that’s very different from the bluegill and occasional shad you see in Iowa,” explained Weichman, who also fished last year’s nationals at Hartwell with Kael Moore. “With that, the lake will fish completely different.”

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For the Timmermans, it was their first high school nationals and first experience on Hartwell.

“It was a little nerve-wracking because we’ve never had that big of a tournament,” noted Ethan Timmerman. “We just knew we had to fish really hard and stick with it and try our best.

“It’s a tough, big lake to fish. Some fish will be deep, some will be shallow. We had to learn how to fish some new styles of fishing in South Carolina.”

Their first couple of days were nothing to call home about.

None of the five teams made the top 10 that moved on to compete for the national championship, although Draper, King, Carstens and Ponstein moved into the 73-team national semifinals field consisting of 73 total teams. The top 10 from that bracket advanced to the World Finals Championship. Draper and King were the top Iowa finishers in 18th with three bass for 7 pounds, 7 ounces.

All the Iowans joined 359 other teams in the next day’s “Second Chance” round where weights were reset and 10 berths in the World Finals Championship were up for grabs.

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Moore and Weichman were 25th with 7 pounds, 9 ounces. The Timmerman brothers, who weren’t able to boat a keeper the first two days, were 38th at 6-23. However, the Timmermans were big winners that evening when they won the “Lucky Dog” drawing for one random spot in the World Finals Championship. They made the most of it, catching a limit weighing 5-5 for 23rd place among the 31 teams that made the final.

“I couldn’t be prouder of all of them,” said Cedar Falls coach Carter Moore.

It was the final high school tournament for Weichman, a senior.

“I was getting kind of frustrated with the lake because it’s so much different from how I would prefer to fish and how I’m used to fishing, but it was such an amazing experience to go down there and do that on a lake as well-known as Hartwell. They fished the Classic there, so it was really cool for that to be my last one.”

Like most high school anglers, Weichman takes away more than improved fishing skills. The sport also offers lessons in teamwork, respect, social interaction, discipline, work ethic, ownership, responsibility and patience.

“I remember sitting at a rules meeting and the tournament director talked about a concept, ‘Why not me? Why not you and your team?’” Weichman explained. “You can have a bunch of fancy gear and a fancy boat, but the fish don’t care. I think that applies in life, too. If you’re really determined to do something, you don’t have to have all this extra stuff to complete one task. It can be anybody.”