The BHS fishing club is run by Jason Catellier, an art teacher at BHS. The club has been running for seven or eight years, and on average, there are 15-20 members. The group starts off their early season meetings by talking about how to fish competitively, but they then make their way into fishing in smaller areas, and eventually into competing against other groups of fishers in spring tournaments. Every meeting, they get closer and closer to competitions, which is what everything they do leads up to.  

On average there are four tournaments and then a state tournament, not including trying to qualify for nationals. There are also typically about 110 at the competitions.  

“For our tournaments in the state, we go to the big lakes like Monroe that can have as many boats as we need at a time,” Catellier stated. 

To practice fishing, Catellier said the club goes to farm ponds or neighborhood ponds, but on occasion, they go to bigger lakes with people who have boats. According to him, the hardest part of the fishing club would be trying to find boat captains, who are people willing to take students out on their boats.  

“In the fall, we just talked about and practiced fishing. We talked about diverse ways you can fish and different lures that you can use. Just an introduction on how to fish competitively,” Catellier said. 

The club meetings are once a week, but occasionally twice a week. Their practice consists of using the stairs in the main hallway of BHS, where they cast rods into buckets. This helps to improve on aim and precision while they fish. 

The fish that is preferred to be caught is always bass. Every fish that is caught by the members is always a catch and release, meaning that they never eat or store the fish—they simply just throw them back.  

Catellier commented that his favorite part of the club is being a boat captain. He enjoys driving his boat around and taking students to places they are interested in fishing in.  

“I cannot fish while I am on the boat, that’s the hard part, but again, I love taking them out and seeing them fish,” Catellier emphasized.