Go fish! No Bassmasters, Michigan's squad has fun

Several thousand students packed Michigan Stadium to watch a football game this weekend. It happens most Saturdays. Generally speaking, weekends in the Ann Arbor sports world revolve around the Michigan football team. This Saturday was just like any other.

But not for everybody.

Seven students went fishing.

The Big Ten bass fishing championships were held this weekend in Mt. Clemens, Mich., and for the first time ever, Michigan sent a team. And how did it do?

"We got shelled, to tell you the truth," said Jay McCullough, a member of the first-time angling squad. "We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into."

What they got themselves into was a weekend that drew fisherstudents from four other Big Ten schools - Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State and host Michigan State - to do, er, battle, on Lake St. Clair.

Jim Rose Rose Beef

"The other teams were really into it," said Brian Allan, another member of Michigan's team. "Some of them had matching uniforms and stuff."

Michigan's coach, Jim Diana, works in the University's School of Natural Resources and Environment. He said someone from Michigan State passed on word of the tourney, and, as McCullough puts it, seven Michigan students "were like, 'Yeah, we'll do it.'"

When they got there, they went to Friday night's pre-tournament banquet, where they met participants from the other teams. But the other teams, apparently, were a bit more prepared.

"During the banquet, they asked our president to come up to the stage," Allan said. "Well, we didn't have one. So we kind of had to do a quick vote right there at the table."

Who was picked?

"Uh, his name was Matt - something," Allan said. "I can't really remember his last name."

Even if the Wolverines hustled their team together at the last minute, they hoped to put together a decent showing. Diana said before the tournament that "most of our participants have never fished a tournament, although a number of them have lots of fishing experience."

The actual tourney went like this: Each team is allowed up to 10 members, but can compete with fewer than 10. Two students (each from a different school) are placed in each boat, and each boat has four hours to fish. All legal bass - that's anything more than 14 inches long - are kept on the boat until the end of the time period. At 3 p.m., the official weigh-in takes place back at the starting dock. The team with the greatest total weight in pounds is the winner.

Each fisherman can only keep his five heaviest fish - anything after that can't count toward the team total. It's usually not a problem, though - just two people reached the limit in this year's tournament.

After the fish are weighed, they're released. Unless, that is, they didn't manage to survive the wait in a holding well. In that case, they're turned over to the local anglers, who dispose of them - or, as McCullough said, "fillet 'em and cook 'em up."

According to Diana, the tournament isn't "much of a spectator sport, since the actual action occurs in boats out on the lake."

Michigan, as you might expect, struggled a bit. One team member actually had to bail out early - literally, in fact. His boat broke down, and he had to release his fish as he was towed to shore, Allan said.

Indiana's 10 men won the team championship after reeling in more than 51 pounds of fish. Michigan State and Purdue followed. Michigan was fifth of the five teams (seven fish for 7.83 pounds), but was barely nudged out of fourth by the Ohio State team - which consisted of one person. "He was damn good, too," McCullough said.

Nonetheless, Michigan competed with one real goal in mind - having a good time. As McCullough said, "A lot of those kids were way too serious, if you ask me. We were just out there for fun."

- Jim Rose can be reached at jwrose@umich.edu.

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