(Editor’s note: Leading up to the inaugural National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship, which will be held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., April 10-12, CollegeFishing.com will post semiweekly feature stories highlighting the 25 teams that qualified. At stake in the tournament is a prize package of $100,000 and a chance to compete in the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup.)
On the surface, North Carolina State teammates Kevin Beverley and Ben Dziwulski look like two peas in a pod. Both are young, athletic and extremely competitive. Both are members of the BassPack – the moniker given to the fanatical N.C. State fishing club. Both Dziwulski and Beverley were introduced to the sport by their fathers at a young age. But what makes them different as individuals makes them excel as a team.
Class: sophomore
Major: Agricultural Business Management
Hometown: Woodbine, Md.
Other interests: basketball, football, mixed martial arts, shark fishing
Class: junior
Major: Biological and Agricultural Engineering
Hometown: Fuquay Varina, N.C.
Other interests: college football, duck hunting, deer hunting, offshore fishing
Club Web site: basspack.org
Q&A
CollegeFishing.com: How were you introduced to fishing?
Beverley: My dad fished a lot of local tournaments when I was growing up. I can remember, back when I was 3 or 4, I would go prefishing with him. If I got too tired, I would take a nap under the console.
Dziwulski: When I was young, my dad took me to nearby bluegill and bass ponds. We’d go a couple times a week. It wasn’t until about middle school, 7th or 8th grade, that I really started noticing the tournament aspect. By the beginning of my sophomore year I joined the Junior Bassmaster club. Later that year I won the Maryland Junior Bassmaster Championship – which qualified me for the Junior Bassmaster World Championship. That same year I also won the Maryland State TBF Championship, which qualified me for the National Guard Junior World Championship on Lake Hamilton. That was a tough tournament, but I won the Maryland State TBF Championship again the next year. At the Junior World Championship, this time on Lake Monticello, I took second. With the money I won, I bought the boat I have now. That was an awesome experience, but because of it, I had to miss my first day of college.
CollegeFishing.com: What style of fishing are you most comfortable with?
Beverley: I generally like to fish slow presentations. I like to throw topwaters too. By nature, I’m a shallow-water fisherman. That’s what was so cool about winning the Northern Regional Championship on Norman. We pretty much had to teach ourselves a new technique. Believe it or not, that was the first time I had ever used a drop shot.
Dziwulski: I will crank until my arm falls off. I like frogs, flipping – any kind of power-fishing. Anything deeper than 7 feet and I am lost. But lately, I’ve been learning to fish deep. Basically I am self-teaching myself to read the graph and try the deep techniques like dragging a football-head jig and a drop shot. I’m gaining confidence with it and I feel like I’m becoming a more well-rounded fisherman.
CollegeFishing.com: What did it feel like to win the Northern Regional Championship and qualify for the inaugural National Championship? How do you plan to prepare for the big event?
Beverley: It was absolutely awesome; we were just blown away. For nationals, we’ve set aside 15 days of practice. We’ll be in Knoxville the week of our spring break in mid-March and we’ll come back over Easter. We can get 15 days in and only miss three days of school. Loudoun and Tellico are new water for us, so we’ll definitely be putting our time in.
Dziwulski: That time of year is very dynamic. The fish could be prespawn, spawn or even postspawn. We have some experience sight-fishing, so that should help. But we’re really trying to be consistent. We’re hoping to find something during those two weeks of practice that we can continue to duplicate. We took that steady approach at Norman and it worked. We knew those deep-water fish weren’t going to be pressured and they would easily replenish. If we can find a pattern like that, we expect to be competitive. We really want to make it to the third day and give ourselves the opportunity to win.
CollegeFishing.com: Tell us something interesting about yourself that most people wouldn’t know.
Beverley: I don’t know; that’s a tough one. I’m kind of a normal, laid-back guy who enjoys the outdoors. Actually, I’m about to go off-shore fishing for some giant stripers.
Dziwulski: I originally wanted to play in the NBA, but I’m 5 feet, 9 inches. When I stopped growing, fishing kind of took over. I’ve played against some Division I players – Chris Wright, who plays for Georgetown and Nolan Smith of Duke. I got dunked on by NBA star Kevin Durant once in a summer league game.
Outside of sports, this summer I’m starting a guiding service. It’s called Surf Sharkin Adventures. Basically it’s my excuse to live at the beach during the summer. Hopefully I’ll make a little money too. I’ll be guiding for sharks, mainly for sand tigers, in the Bethany Beach, Del.-Ocean City, Md., area. We catch them up to 12 feet long there. I’m working on a Web site now and hopefully will have it up soon.