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FLW Outdoors Meet the Hokies
Check out the articles on the two tech teams going to the National Championship this spring on collegefishing.com. (links below)
Scott Wiley and Charlie Macheck
Carson Rejzer and Andrew (Wyatt) Blevins
Reeling in a championship
By T. REES SHAPIRO
COLLEGIATE TIMES
These guys were roddin' and reelin', weighin' and keepin', and in the 72 hours Scott Wiley and Brett Thompson cruised the Arkansas river last weekend, they captured the ultimate title for undergrad anglers nationwide: the heavyweights of the College Bass National Championship.
Courtesy of Career Sports EntertainmentVirginia Tech students Scott Wiley (left), and Brett Thompson hold up their winning catches at the College Bass National Championship.
Wiley and Thompson, both Richmond natives, represented Virginia Tech in the third annual CBNC, the first trip for the Hokies, and lured in the top honors by crushing the 36 team field by four pounds at the final weigh-in.
"It's definitely cool to win it our first time out," Thompson said. "There's a lot of great fisherman out there, and to be considered national college champions of bass fishing, it's pretty awesome."
Wiley, a senior landscape architecture major, and Thompson, a junior building construction major, were consistent throughout the three day tournament, out-reeling their opponents each day with the heaviest five fish catch. They weighed in at 13 pounds and 11 ounces the first day, 13 pounds the second, and pulled in four fish for 8 pounds 8 ounces the final day to capture the title.
The Arkansas River system is chock full of dams and locks, which can be copiously supplied with Bass that haven't seen bait since they were trapped inside. Wiley and Thompson though, were unfamiliar with dam and lock fishing, and decided to stick with what they knew best.
"We'd never dealt with a lock and dam before," Wiley said. "We were kind of nervous to do so because we had heard of people getting stuck with barges and not being able to make it back to weigh in on time. We knew that we'd be able to find some good fish in the area that we were in, and wouldn't have to go up or down."
To be able to win the tournament in the team's historical first try is impressive enough. But to defeat your opponents by a total of four pounds, that takes a little more than beginner's luck.
"The trick was for us that we picked that spots that naturally replenish themselves with fish everyday," Wiley said. "We fished rock walls and naturally in a river system these fish will move down the river and find homes temporarily along these rock walls and chase bait that comes by down the river. We threw our bait, like a natural bait would come down a rock wall, and the fish would ambush our lures, and we ended up catching probably 35 fish that day, but some were just really small, and under the length limit. So I think our tactics were right, and we stuck with it."
Mainly, before Wiley founded the Bass Fishing Team at Virginia Tech, the concept of being considered the top team in the country seemed surreal because neither of them had even heard of competitive fishing at the collegiate level.
"I'm actually the one that learned about college bass fishing, and I had the idea that we should definitely have it here at Tech," said Wiley, who founded the club in March last year. "I went through the steps to find the people that would want to do it with me, and found out how to submit some paper work to become a student organization."
Though, if you'd asked Wiley or Thompson back in early March if in a few months time they would be the best college bass fisherman in the country, they'd humbly deny that kind of notion as far fetched an idea as a 20 pound Large Mouth.
"I don't really think I deserve this championship," Thompson said. "There's better fishermen than me out there, and I haven't had a lot of experience, but I've honed my skills over the years and tried different techniques and strategies, and that's what's made me successful."
But now that dreams are a reality, Wiley and Thompson track their beginnings in the tradition of angling to their younger days.
"I've been fishing ever since I was old enough to walk down to the local reservoir and throw a worm off the dock," Wiley said.
"I've been bass fishing my entire life," Thompson said. "I grew up in ponds near my house, but never really got into tournament fishing until I got to Tech."
Both Wiley and Thompson learned the trade from their fathers, who taught them their secrets at an early age, which paid off this past weekend in Arkansas. With all the strategy, knowledge of river ecology, and constant casting, Wiley explained that the common misconception that Bass Fisherman are not athletes is a load of worms.
"I wouldn't say so much physical, except this past tournament we threw pretty much the entire time and constantly moving. At home you cast maybe every minute or so, but out there we were casting like every 10 or 15 seconds. It comes out to be close to a thousand casts for each day. And that becomes physically demanding especially if you're out bouncing on a boat, trying to keep one foot on a trolling motor, and one foot balancing you, and a lot of people don't think about it that way."
However, these two, and the rest of the Bass Fishing Club, are looking forward to more opportunities on the open water to uphold their reputation as "heavyweight" contenders. They usually go to Claytor Lake to practice locally, but in the near future are looking to host a club tournament locally.
"We just want to get the word out for Virginia Tech Bass fishing," Thompson said. "The plan is to get this sport out there, we hope to eventually get a conference championship in the future. We're trying to host something this spring at Smith Mountain Lake."
While almost anyone can explain the basic rules of football, the sport of Bass Fishing is, to say the least, not quite on the radar of college students at the moment, but as Wiley can testify, it's gaining popularity.
"We have four official members right now," Wiley said. "But in the past two weeks or so, we've had about 10 people respond who were interested in joining� We really want to try to grow the club, become more organized, and have a lot more fun."
College Smash-Mouth Article
'Hokies Get Hooked Up'
June 19, 2007
The Virginia Tech Bass Fishing Team spent a week following the Bassmaster Elite Series anglers who recently competed on Smith Mountain Lake. Only an hour’s drive from their Blacksburg campus, the event drew many other Virginia Tech students, as well.
The college anglers, made up of Charlie Machek, Brett Thompson and Scott Wiley, were special guests of ESPNOutdoors.com during the event and were given full access to the anglers during the daily weigh-ins. They even appeared on ESPNOutdoors.com’s live show “Hooked Up”, a pre-weigh-in feature that airs on the site that’s in the same vein as "College Game Day."
