By Stephanie Jeter '06
The Texas A&M University team of Trevor Knight ’08 (left) and Justin Rackley ’08 won the 2007 Boat U.S. National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship, beating 83 teams from 48 schools.
The national competition stretched over three days, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., on Lake Lewisville near Dallas. Rackley, Knight and the other competitors were allowed three additional days of practice before the challenge started.
Both Knight and Rackley hope this win will help them achieve their goal of becoming professional anglers. Knight is a graduate student studying wildlife and fisheries science. Rackley is pursuing his bachelor’s degree in fisheries ecology.
Knight and Rackley caught two of their fish using a small finesse soft plastic worm, one on a jig and one on a white tube. The biggest fish of the day weighed 3 pounds.
Justin Rackley '08 felt the tug of the line before anything else — though his fishing partner would later say that when you fish as much as they do, you know when you're going to get a bite.
You can almost predict it, said Trevor Knight '08, graduate student. Like a well-played game of copycat, a good fisherman knows what the fish want and then emulates it with technique and bait, he said.
Fishing is a sport of patterns. And for the two college students, precedent ruled. Under a blue September sky, Team Rackley and Knight, left Lake Lewisville as winners of the U.S. National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship.
The sunburned duo from Aggieland outfished 83 teams from 48 universities. In congratulations, judges handed over a brass trophy of a leaping bass and squeezed a giant check worth $14,000 between the two lake-legged anglers. Cameras flashed. The news landed on blogs, newspapers and the tongues of fishing enthusiasts the next day.
That pat on the back may have pushed Texas A&M's winning fishing team into the world of professional anglers. They were looking for a way in, and "that win gave us a lot of confidence," Rackley, a fisheries ecology student. Along with the prize package came an invitation to fish in the Toyota Texas Bass Classifier at Choke Canyon. Come February, Rackley and Knight will compete against top professional anglers for the chance to fish for the $1 million Texas Bass Classic at Lake Fork. It's a chance normally valued at $2,500, but "they waived our entry fee," Rackley said.
He and Knight, a student of wildlife and fisheries science, are now on the professional anglers' association's mailing list, and potential sponsors have their number. It could be because they keep practicing, Knight said. Both spend their weekends camped out on Texas' boat ramps. "We're starting out our professional careers, getting our names out there," Knight said. "We continue to hone our skills."
All the while, the fish keep biting.
Stephanie Jeter '06 is a reporter and writer for Texas Aggie magazine and AggieNetwork.com. To contact her, e-mail SJeter06@AggieNetwork.com.