Casting his line into the water, senior Lars Angel waits for a nibble on his line as a member of the Fenton Community Youth Bass Fishing Club. Coach Brett Straffon began the club in 2016 for those students with a passion for fishing.

“We meet every month to talk about fishing and we also do tournaments,” Angel said. “It seems like I’ve been fishing forever, at least since I was three or four. It’s a step back from everything else. It’s relaxing, but also challenging. It’s just so much fun for me.”  

Middle and high school students from Fenton, Holly, Lake Fenton and Linden are on the team, and they’re known as Anglers. The team competes in youth tournaments during  the summer, as well as ice fishing competitions in the winter.

“A lot of times when we do in-club tournaments; we’ll do a kayak fishing tournament on Runyan Lake,” Straffon said. “Last summer we hosted a two day tournament, and anyone that wanted to could spend the night. We had a lot of fun as a group.”

Anglers are divided into teams of two, and each individual team has a boat and boat driver. These groups compete as individual teams, rather than as a Fenton Community team as a whole.

“One of my favorite tournaments was last fall,” Angel said. ”We were out in Grand Haven and we couldn’t find the fish. We kept looking, and it took a while before we finally found them by some lily pads. We ended up placing third in the tournament, even though we thought we were doing terrible. We were only 0.1 lbs away from going to nationals, so that was a great accomplishment.”

The Fenton Bass Club is self-funded, and relies heavily on sponsors to cover their expenses. 

“Fishing doesn’t take a lot of strength or anything like that, it just takes enjoyment,” Straffon said. “You just have to want to go fishing, and it can be a lot of fun to join the club and fish with other people who love to do it.”

Any middle or high school student in the Fenton Community can join. Those interested should contact Straffon at (810)610-3207.