A unique club sport at Gibault Catholic High School recently closed out the school year with its first step into the world of competitive bass fishing, and they’re plenty eager to cast their lines again when tournaments return next spring.

Gibault’s bass fishing team got its start during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with incoming senior John Bollone, who had previously gone fishing with his family.

As his mother Maggie Bollone described, John has long had a broad interest in hunting and the outdoors, with the Bollones occasionally enjoying time together fishing in a bass boat.

When John heard about high schools offering bass fishing in 2021, he got in touch with administration at Gibault who were supportive of getting the club going.

“Just getting together and going and fishing the local ponds is how it started off with the school,” Maggie said.

With John’s parents sponsoring the group, the team has largely been dedicated to simply hanging out and fishing together – though that changed this spring as Elisabeth Schaefer, a recent graduate and one of the club’s first members, voiced her interest in participating in a proper competition.

As the club had mainly just done shore fishing, they were able to get a boat from one of his dad’s friends.

John spoke about the tournament experience at the start of May.

The IHSA sectional bass fishing tournament took place at Kinkaid Lake near Murphysboro, with teams getting out on the lake at 7 a.m. and heading back to shore at 2 p.m.

“It was a long day, but it was worth it at the end,” John said.

The goal for each team at the start was to catch five fish, releasing them as the tournament went on and they were able to reel in bigger catches.

This culminated in a live weighing followed by the release.

The Gibault team ultimately wound up coming in 17th out of 21 teams with 5.89 pounds caught compared to the winning team’s 14 pounds.

While the goal and action are considerably different than more traditional sports – John noted how different the experience was with it being the Gibault team’s first tournament – it wound up feeling similar to many other competitions.

“It turned into any other sport where there was a bunch of other people, and you’ve got to work against them to really do well in the tournament,” John said. “It’s always that mindset of you’re playing against other schools, and someone’s gonna win.”

John further described how different the fishing was, emphasizing both the change from fishing on the shore to fishing on a boat and the newfound emphasis on where exactly on the lake you’re fishing that comes with that different mobility.

The sense of teamwork was also a distinct part of the tournament for him.

“The other sports, you’ve got more people,” John said. “It’s not just you and one other person trying to win. You have more of a team, I should say, when you’re playing other sports.”

Owen Haney, a fellow Gibault senior, joined John in the tournament and also spoke about the experience.

He highlighted how they, having largely just fished recreationally in the past, had to place a new focus on their gear and overall strategy in preparation for the sectional tournament.

While the atmosphere of the competition was certainly different than the team’s usual, Haney said they were still able to enjoy their time out on the boat.

“It was a lot more serious when we were out there on the boat, not that it wasn’t a fun experience,” Haney said. “I had a ton of fun because I like fishing, but it was more of a sport than when we’re on the bank of a lake just hanging out.”

He also compared the tournament to his experience playing other sports, particularly in regard to the physical and mental demand.

“It is definitely a competition,” Haney said. “I play soccer, and going out and running for a full soccer game takes a lot out of you, but what you don’t really think about is that standing on a boat for seven hours also takes a lot out of you to just be fishing that whole time.”

Though the team hardly dominated in its inaugural tourney, the promising start has left both John and Haney eager to join future competitions.

“We’ve been looking at, over the summer and this coming fall, doing more actual getting on a boat and fishing so when we get to spring for those tournaments and everything, we’ll be more experienced on a boat and how to fish different areas,” John said.