Germantown High School now has a new sport for its students to participate in: Bass fishing.
Fishing isn’t new to the high school scene, but it is picking up momentum and there are several Central Mississippi teams now. At the end of last season, Eric Schirmer, the sponsor, and Germantown Athletic Director Gregg Perry got together to talk about bringing the sport to Germantown and then hosted an interest meeting with students.
“Fishing is pretty popular in this area and we anticipated we would have a lot of interest, but we were really blown away with our initial interest meeting back in August,” Schirmer said. “We ended up having 64 kids interested, which is massive.”
While 64 kids aren’t on the team, it showed the interest of the students and that it was the correct decision to start a team. The team consists of seventh through 12th grade students.
“We have a lot of junior high kids, so we’re excited about that because it shows we’re going to have some good numbers in the future,” Schirmer said.
While they compete as a team, the team doesn’t hold practices. The sport takes a lot of individual practice, work and studying. This allows for more kids to be on the team.
“A lot of these kids can play football and can play baseball and also be on the fishing team,” Schirmer said. “I think a good aspect of it is that it doesn’t necessarily replace traditional sports. I think a lot of kids can do both. I’m a firm believer in getting kids outside and love any chance to get kids in the outdoors and compete in the outdoors. I have a lot of parents that say, ‘Oh, man, I wish they would have this when I was a kid.’ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that. That’s a cool statement to hear that we do have that option now.”
Bass fishing is growing not just in high school but also in college.
“You’re starting to see it a little bit more on TV, and Mississippi and Alabama both have some really good college bass fishing teams,” Schirmer said. “We’re giving kids an opportunity to start a little bit of a tournament or competitive career with bass fishing. That can translate into future scholarship opportunities at colleges. I think that’s another really cool aspect of getting this off the ground.”
The team had their first tournament the last weekend in October. Their next one will be in February and then they will have a tournament once a month until the state championship in May. Each of the tournaments are held at the Ross Barnett Reservoir.
“Most of our tournaments are going to be at the reservoir, and every year we’re adding teams and it’s getting bigger, so that’s a good thing,” Schirmer said.
For the first tournament, they had 22 kids compete for Germantown High School. Schirmer said the school has been super supportive of the team.
“The school has been extremely supportive, and they bought jerseys and hats for us,” Schirmer said. “That was really nice because especially with a new program sometimes it’s hard to get off the ground. Our athletic director showed up at 6 a.m. to the first tournament, so that was really cool for him to wake up that early and be out there to show his support. It’s really nice to have to know that we have that backing.”
For the competition, there are two kids in one boat with an adult as a captain who drives the boat but can’t help the students in any way. The fish are required to be bass, at least 14 inches, and still living to be counted. The top five fish are scored and weighed.
“It’s exciting how many kids are interested – we know we found something that hit the spot,” Schirmer said. “Our athletic director is always trying to do everything that he can for his students and pick the right activities for them. This was the right move and a good thing.”
