Bass club battles Purdue

All Zack Stephenson needed to catch was a two-pound bass. A two-pound bass would thicken his wallet with $2,500. A two-pound bass would pay a year's rent or year's worth of car insurance. A two-pound bass could buy Zack a car; it could help finance his education; T-bone steaks would replace ramen noodles for dinner. All this if he could just catch a two-pound fish.\nHe'd better stock up on ramen noodles.\n"All I caught was a one small crappie," Stephenson said. A rookie member of the IU Bass Club, Stephenson, a sophomore, competed in an Indiana bass fishing tournament this fall with little success thanks to poor conditions. "Out of 70 boats, only 18 (fishermen) caught fish big enough to weigh in. And of those 18, the biggest bass was 1.78 pounds. That fish won $2,500."\nTournaments like these serve as warm-ups for the IU Bass Club. The 17-year-old club competes twice a year and participates in various non-fishing events throughout the season. \nThe Big Ten trophy moved back to West Lafayette from Bloomington this year as IU suffered a sound defeat in the Big Ten Classic held on the Salamonie Reservoir, near Fort Wayne. Bass Club president Danny Blandford said the loss diminished the Hoosiers' hopes of the school's first back-to-back bass titles after winning the conference in 2001. \n"The past two Big Ten tournaments have been really tough as far as fishing conditions go," Blandford said. "Nobody really caught a lot of fish in either tournament; however, we caught one (bass) last year that was big enough to win the whole tourney by itself -- luck I guess. This year we just didn't get the bites that we needed." \nThe Hoosiers finished forth overall in the Big Ten, weighing in only two fish that combined for five pounds. \nBetween tournaments, in the fall and winter, the Bass Club partakes in projects to help raise team funds. In addition to the $1,000 of University funding, the club benefits from raffle drawings and donations in order to cover out-of-town expenses and tournament fees. Blandford said club members usually go through the season without spending more than $30.\nIn addition to fund-raising, the club also volunteers in the community, participating in events like the Spirit of Sports, benefiting the Special Olympics, and an Adopt-a-Highway program where the club maintains a mile stretch of the highway alongside Lake Monroe. \n"It's a nasty spot to clean, but it's still a lot of fun though, about as much fun as you can have when you're not fishing," said Bass Club sports representative Brett Hackman. \nThe non-fishing events, like the roadside cleanup, also allow club members with opportunities to earn fishing points. The fishermen chosen for each tournament -- ten for the Big Ten, twenty for the Minnow Bucket -- are selected based upon a point system to ensure fairness to those members who put in the most time. \n"We don't just pick who we think are the best anglers," Blandford said. "We pick the guys who have the most points; the guys that pay their dues, attend meetings, and help with the community service events."\nJust as Purdue and IU football players battle for the Old Oaken Bucket on the field, the rivalry carries over to the water when the two schools fish for ownership of the Old Minnow Bucket, a non-conference bass duel between Purdue and IU held each spring on the home waters of the hosting team. \nIn last year's Bucket brawl the Hoosiers were again denied a repeat victory as Purdue regained the trophy on IU waters. The victory didn't come easy for Purdue though, as IU sophomore fisherman Dan Lawson made the Boilermakers earn first place, weighing in two fish, one of which was the biggest caught all day. \n"One (bass) was just over the legal size limit of 14 inches, and the other weighed around 4.06 pounds," Lawson said. "I placed second in total weight with 5.48 pounds, and won the biggest bass award."\nPurdue, this year's hosting club, comes into the tournament as the favorite, currently holding both the Big Ten and Minnow Bucket titles. But the victory-hungry Hoosiers are up for the challenge. \n"We're all looking forward to the upcoming Minnow Bucket with Purdue. Nobody on our squad is intimidated," Blandford said. "If anything, our loss to them has helped serve as a motivator for the spring tourney."\nIn the past ten years, bass fishing acquired a large following in the United States, specifically in the midwest, Texas and Florida. The growing audience caught the attention of media as dozens of magazines now cover the sport, while television stations continue to devote more airtime to major tournaments, including the 2001 Minnow Bucket which will air this January on ESPN2. The young sport has also begun to accumulate a high degree of marketability, luring big-name companies, such as Wal-Mart, into sponsoring professional tournaments that now boast high prize purses comparable to those of major golf events.\nSimilar to the professional level, collegiate bass fishing is on the rise. Nine Big Ten schools now have bass clubs and compete in the Classic. Blandford said he would ultimately like to see the college sport advance to a national level of competition and reach the point where collegiate fishing becomes the minor leagues for professional bass fishing. \n"Eventually I'd like to see some of the major companies coming to us, wanting to know who our top anglers are," Blandford said. "Guys who could represent their company in a professional and intelligent manner and show people that bass anglers aren't the dumb hillbillies we're seen as by other people"