Boilers hope to reclaim Old Minnow Bucket

By Nicole Arias
Staff Writer

Dew on the grass perfumes the air, fog rolls on the calm water and chirping birds bring the lake to life as the sun creeps across the horizon.

For the members of the Purdue Bass Fishing Club, this scene is only one incentive to wake up at 4 a.m. the morning of a tournament.

Another big incentive is winning.

In fact, the team's motto and immediate goal is to beat Indiana University.

The top 20 members of the team will compete in the Purdue-Indiana University tournament Saturday at Lake Shafer in Monticello, Ind.

"We need to beat the crap out of IU," said Michael Murphy, the club president and a sophomore in the School of Agriculture.

The coveted Old Minnow Bucket trophy hangs in the balance.

Purdue leads the Old Minnow Bucket series 5-3, but the Hoosiers won last year. The 11-year-old club has 50 members who fish in four inner-club tournaments; the top 10 members compete in the Big Ten Classic.

Travis Feuerbach, the public relations officer and a senior in the School of Agriculture, said bass fishing doesn't follow the stereotype of "rednecks with a can of worms."

The members agree that bass fishing is a physical, as well as a mental, sport.

Some of the discomforts that come with fishing for eight hours straight, the length of most tournaments, are: lower back pains and fatigue because of having to stand the entire time and keep balanced, not to mention suffering through whatever the weather conditions are.

Despite these annoyances, Feuerbach said focus must always be on the line. It's a marathon brain game of who can react to the fish the fastest, Murphy said.

"You have to know what you're doing, luck rarely plays a role," he said.

But this is not to say that luck never plays a role as Murphy describes one special catch.

"This one is a keeper, I thought," Murphy said.

But he pulled it up hard enough that the bait flew out of its mouth and the fish went flying.

When the bass hit the side of the boat, Murphy thought he lost it.

"One millimeter one way, the fish was gone," he said. "One millimeter the other way, it would land in the boat.

"It landed in the boat."

One member, however, makes her own luck.

After catching her first catch of the day, Amie Dick, the club secretary and a freshman in the School of Nursing, always says, 'OK, now go find your friends' and releases it.

The only time that she breaks this tradition is when the fish is a keeper.

Murphy compared bass fishing to playing the lottery in the sense that in fishing there are infinite situations.

With such variables as water clarity, wind, temperature, rain and moon phases, Murphy said a person will see similar situations, but rarely will run into the same one.

It's a game of skill and memory to first realize what it was that helped to catch the fish and second to remember and know when to apply it at a later time.

Members begin preparing for a tournament days before the actual competition.

First, they try to predict where the bass will be by examining a topographical map of the lake and watching the weather. Then they go pre-fishing in the lake to check their predictions and gather more insight into the bass.

After all that, the hardest thing about the competition is falling asleep the night before the tournament.

"It's horrible not being able to fall asleep because I'm thinking about the nine million things for the next morning," said Adam Wright, a freshman in the School of Technology.

The day of the tournament involves a 4 a.m. wake-up-call to be ready for the 7 a.m. boat launch, after which they fish and fish and fish.

At 3 p.m., the fish are weighed-in, maybe photographed and released back into the lake. All tournaments are catch and release.

Some are already competing in tournaments outside of the club.

This year alone, Murphy has competed in 20 tournaments, not including those in connection with the club.

He said the tournaments cost between $300 and $800 with the entry fee, travel, food, boat and gas expenses and he usually makes enough from the tournaments to break even. But sometimes he still has to pick up part-time jobs to afford the tournaments.

"Fishing is my life," Murphy said.

"It's OK," one member said with a consoling nod as the rest of the group laughed.

After a chuckle, Murphy said, "It will always be a part of my life."

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