Michael Foreman
GSW 1110
September 28, 2015
Profile essay
Caught on Fishing
“I love fishing because every time you go out to fish its different.” says Vice President of the BGSU Fishing Club Jon Fickert. This was Fickert’s response when I asked what his favorite part of fishing himself. Essentially, the goal of the fishing club is to promote the sport throughout the university to get more students a chance to get into the sport whether it’s competitive fishing or just for fun fishing. It provides fisherman to get out onto the water just free of all stress from school and just do what they love.
My friend Jared and I were out fishing on the bitter cold muddy Maumee River fishing the famous Walleye Run. It was April 2015, it was a really windy day upon wading out in the water and stepping into the swaying “line” of the walleye fisherman. My friend and I are damn good fisherman, especially when it comes to those toothy walleye but this man we were fishing next just stood out over everyone. He was catching walleye as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and just really seemed to know what he was doing. He made it look like it was his job to go out there and catch walleye for a living and that he’s been fishing the run for 30 years. But the man was no more than 5 years older than we were, his winter pasty skin color with a really scruffy manly beard, wearing a Cabela’s max-4 camo hat and his blue lensed sun glasses to block out the bright early morning sun rays. At that point, I had no idea who this gentlemen was but he was great at what he was doing.
In the past couple days, interviewing Fickert, I found out who he was and it all came back to me to as to why he was so good at what he was doing and how he was doing. Jon Fickert, Vice President of the fishing club, followed behind the clubs president Corey Miller. After some guys who didn’t do much for the club left, Jon stepped up and took over the vice president spot. Fickert has been fishing his whole life. He fishes for anything and everything. Although Jon will fish over 250 days a year, those days are mostly walleye with bass being second followed by pan fish. Jon’s Dad raised him on Lake Erie so, it’s safe to say he knows it like it’s a part of his family. Jon is also a licensed captain for a charter on Lake Erie all summer for walleye and perch.
The BGSU fishing club was founded in 2011. Ever since then it has been on the rise. Collegiate bass fishing is the fastest growing college sport. Many, many southern schools make their fishing teams their biggest seller to get kids to come to their school. But it has come to some major problems with the club itself. “The clubs biggest problem is students without boats that really want to fish. We now have three boats which allows 6 guys to fish in the tournaments if we can all go. We normally run on seniority of who will fish and work our way down,” says Jon Fickert. There getting so many kids to want to come out and fish that it’s getting hard on them to handle all the stress and pressure the new anglers are putting on them. Funding is also a big problem. The club is able to get a little bit of money from the school but not as much as other schools where they get a purchased boat and many other goodies. It is a lot of out of pocket expense for the anglers of the team. Also, a few of the upperclassmen will be gone next year, and the weight of the team will be on the younger guys’ shoulders. So Fickert is hoping them the best of luck to take over the responsibilities of the older guys. The team practices consist of just the amount of times you go out fishing by yourself or with buddies from the team. The more you practice the better you’ll get. The team also gets sponsored by retail fishing stores to help the team out a lot. The sponsors are mostly from business owners that any of the anglers know. They ask for cash to help pay for trips and tournaments. A few larger companies supply collegiate anglers with discounts. The biggest sponsor the team has is Pure Fishing. They own a few larger brands and give the team a solid discount for tackle, apparel, and other accessories.
Collegiate fishing is a very competitive sport. Many schools are starting to get together teams to join the fun as well. There’s no telling who will win because fish are so decisive. As Fickert says about the competitive level they face “Many of the other guys are very good fisherman. I would say they live their lives around bass fishing like some guys never stop playing football. Just like any other sport you never know what will happen. Sometimes the fish cooperate for you. Sometimes they don’t.” Some days will be better for the team than others. Depends who is out there and what there working. Our BGSU fishing team has actually had pretty good success in the past years. The team qualified for the Regional Championship with a 7th place finish on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. They also finished top 20 on Chickamauga Lake in Tennessee and qualified with 7th place finish on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. There are big tournaments such as the Cabela’s Collegiate Bass Series and the FLW series, which is a very big deal for the team when those series come up. It is very easy to find out about these tournaments. Just an easy search online will give you all the information you need. Even better, most tournaments are free to student anglers.
The Fishing club is a very easy process of getting involved. Could either talk to them at the campus fest and sign up there or they also have their Facebook page which is a very easy way of getting involved with the club.
Works cited
“Facebook Logo.” BGSU Falcon Fishing Team. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.
Fickert, John. Email Interview. 14 September 2015