The fraternity of college anglers

One of my best buddies graduated from Notre Dame this past spring. He played on the school’s hockey team, and as we watched the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals this past June, he would not let an opportunity pass to tell me a story about any player that came on the screen who he had played against or had the briefest of encounters with during his career. It was a nonstop narrative of “I played juniors with so and so” or “I met so and so while we played in the NCAA Frozen Four.”

I often just nodded my head or said, “that’s cool,” as I tried to focus on the game. I thought it was annoying, but as FLW Outdoors is wrapping up its second season of National Guard FLW College Fishing, I can see where he was coming from. I now find myself identifying with those anglers I have competed against in my collegiate fishing days and telling everyone about it every chance I get.

Watching Jake Gipson and Matthew Wercinski at the Forrest Wood Cup in August made a normally exciting event even better. I found myself rooting for the University of Florida duo and paying close attention to live updates and feeds from the water. Seeing a college team on the biggest stage of bass fishing gave credence to our corner of the sport. I am sure all college anglers were proud to see Gipson and Wercinski represent the college nation. I was able to say I fished against those guys.

Similarly, as more seasons pass and anglers graduate, there are more former college competitors starting to show up in the headlines of higher FLW events. Chris Kinney-Hermes, a graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh, was leading the Co-angler Division of the FLW Series Eastern Division event on Lake Champlain after two days. Although I never met or even competed against Kinney-Hermes, there was a part of me pulling for him to win the event. He had come up through the college ranks and is chasing the dream that so many of us college anglers have, to fish with and against the best in the country.

This weekend, as the FLW American Fishing Series Northern Division takes to the waters of Lake Erie, I will be watching and hoping Eastern Kentucky University angler Tyler Moberly comes to the scales with a big bag of smallmouths. I have been following his Facebook posts and updates of pictures and videos from the shores of Lake Erie. It does not matter that he fishes for one of Murray State University’s biggest rivals or that he and his teammates have won numerous college events this season. He is one of us, a collegiate angler. While on the water we may viciously compete against each other, off it we have a respect and admiration for one another. In fact, he often crashes on my couch when he comes to Kentucky Lake events because I know that saving a few bucks on a hotel room can pay for a few more lures or a few extra gallons of gas. Fraternities have a word for this kind of rapport. They call it brotherhood.