Bass fishing club reels in $50K prize

It took three days on a lake and 13 fish for members of the IU bass fishing club to land the big one – a $50,000 prize.

On the final foggy day of the College Fishing Central Regional Championship, IU’s bass fishing team took home the first place title.

The regional took place at Kentucky Lake, near Murray, Ky. The area is known to be one of the top fisheries in the nation.

It consisted of three full days of fishing for large mouth, small mouth and spotted bass.
Each day, the teams were allowed to choose their six largest fish to be used in the weigh in.

IU’s championship boat was comprised of senior Jesse Schultz and sophomore Dustin Vaal. At the end of day three, they totaled 29 pounds, 14 ounces from 13 fish.

The club defeated runner-up Eastern Kentucky by more than four pounds. Other final competition included Ohio State, Southern Illinois and Murray State.

IU was one of only two schools that qualified two boats for the regional.

The other boat’s members were sophomore Steven Bressler and senior Tyler Zschiedrich. They finished 14th during the weekend.

The tournament did not start the way Vaal and Schultz would have liked. At the end of the first day they were in 15th place. In order to qualify for the final day, they would have to be in the top five.

“We thought that we could make it into the top five, but after the first day we were almost in last place and we just didn’t know,” Vaal said.

On day two, the Hoosier boat found a new spot that gave them just what they needed.
“We went to a different spot on the lake over by one of the bridges,” Vaal said. “We went back to that same spot on the final day.”

The Hoosiers went into their last day of fishing in third place. The third day consisted of only the top-five teams. Schultz and Vaal knew their big competition was the members of Eastern Kentucky.

“If you know anything about college bass fishing, you know the two names from Eastern Kentucky,” Schultz said. “We were going up against those guys all day, and we knew that we had to catch a lot of fish.”

By 9:30 a.m. Schultz and Vaal had already reached the limit of fish allowed, but they were worried because they hadn’t caught a big fish that they thought was essential to winning.

When the teams came in for the final weigh in, IU was in first place with only EKU left to weigh its catches. Both IU members were sitting at center stage in the “hot seat” as EKU walked up to weigh in its fish.

“It was really intense,” Zschiedrich said. “We knew (EKU) had done really well, that all they had to do was catch a few fish because (Schultz and Vaal) had so much ground to make up.”

But EKU only caught one fish that day.

“It was an unbelievable tournament,” Schultz said. “It was just a wonderful feeling to be up there on stage with hundreds of people in the crowd.”

The entire tournament was filmed and will be featured on The Versus Network on Nov. 29.

The $50,000 prize includes a $25,000 Ranger fishing boat wrapped in cream and crimson and a $25,000 cash prize sent to the University.

With the top-five finish Schultz and Vaal qualified for the National Tournament, set to take place in the spring in Tennessee. The tournament will feature a prize of $100,000.

“Dustin and I have both been fishing all our lives,” Schultz said. “Your prize package is usually somewhere around $2,000. Only the professionals get to fish for $50,000 prizes.”