New this year the United School District added Bass Fishing to their list of extracurricular programs. On what was not an ideal day for fishing, Superintendent Jeff Whitsitt said eight students competed in the IHSA sectionals recently in Victoria where one of the boats was just short of qualifying for state:
“We took two boats. We took eight kids, which is the max you can really take; four kids per boat and only two kids in a boat at a time. We made a conscious effort this year to involve as many kids as we could. We had a lot more than eight kids interested and we actually had tryouts over a couple weeks out at Lake Warren and some other local fishing holes. We zeroed in on eight kids that we felt like had the skills and desire to compete and we took two boats. I need to thank Scott Stewart and Gary Teel, who were out boat captains for us, volunteered their time and helped us out quite a bit. One of our boats actually was five ounces away from advancing to state. Also, Devin Bushong, who was in that boat that almost qualified for state, he ended up with the second largest catch of the day.”
The United Junior High also has a fishing program where they compete internally at local fishing holes.
**Written by WMOI/WRAM Director of Communications Kelsey Crain**
