For the second year high school teams will be allowed to fish in the junior division.  The details are below….

Date: September 25, 2010

Location: Albany Landing (pool 14), Albany Illinois

Junior Division Rules

No Entry Fee!!!

Fishing is allowed only in Pool 14

Junior boaters blast off last in the order of registration was received.

Weigh-in is at 2:00pm

Participants must be currently enrolled in high school.

ALL IHSA RULES WILL BE FOLLOWED, except the size limit on the fish is 14 inches.

Please call or email Coach Prybil or Albrecht for more details and to sign up!

Teams members at the Childrens Therapy Center Tournament 2009

World Outdoors: Meet Moline’s bass leaders

Comment on this story

Photo: Submitted Wearing their second-place medals, Moline High School bass team members Zach Latting, left, and Brady Barlow hoist the runner-up trophy they won in the state bass fishing championship. Volunteer co-coaches Tim Albrecht and Brian Prybil look on.

Last year, the Illinois High School Association, the group that looks after the state’s high school sports, voted to sail some waters uncharted across the entire United States and try competitive bass fishing as an official high school sport. The idea went over much better than anticipated and now after year two, the new sport seems to keep on growing.

A year ago, Moline High School anglers jumped on the band wagon with their representative teams finishing the sectional tournament in first and fourth places, with the top three earning berths in the state finals. This spring, Moline anglers were third and fourth in the sectional, and going on to the state finals they finished in second place.

That said, we’d like to introduce two Moline bass fishing leaders — Brady Barlow and Zach Latting.

“I started fishing, or being around fishing, when I was really little,” Barlow said. “I used to tag along with an older cousin when he went fishing. He’d use bread as bait to catch carp. Just watching that happen, I wanted a chance to fish.

“When I got a little older my parents allowed me to ride my bike four or five blocks to Prospect Park pond and fish for carp with bread or anything that would bite on the dew worms I’d catch in our yard. And when I got bigger, I’d ride my bike to the Mississippi River to fish for anything that would bite. When I got my driver’s license, I’d drive to even more places to fish.”

That mode continued for a lad who just plain liked to fish for most anything that would bite on the doughballs he’d make or the worms he collect—until he had a class last year with teacher Tim Albrecht, an avid outdoorsman who had volunteered to be one of the Moline bass fishing team coaches.

“Mr. Albrecht and I would talk fishing sometimes and he encouraged me to get on the new bass fishing team even though I really had never bass fished before,” Barlow said. “I got on the team and started learning lots of new things. Last year was the first time I ever fished for bass, fished from a boat, used a bait casting reel or used an artificial lure.

“When the sectional tournament came I was selected to be on one team and we came in fourth—missing qualifying for the state finals by just ounces.”

That close call motivated Barlow—he was then on a mission like never before.

“I bass fished every chance I got all last summer and fall until winter and then fished every chance I got as soon as ice out this spring—basically every day,” Barlow said. “It was go go go after that missed chance—I wanted to improve.”

That hard work and determination paid off—Barlow and Latting were third in the sectional and followed that sterling performance up with second at the state championship!

Barlow graduated from Moline last month, but plans to continue competitive bass fishing and has already entered several club tournaments.

“I started fishing with my dad and grandpa when I was about three,” Latting said. “We fished for bluegills in farm ponds. When I was about five my family started going on vacations to Wisconsin where dad and I would fish for bass using artificial lures. We did that for a lot of years.

“Then I started playing football and kinda gave up fishing, until my freshman year, when I got out of football and back into fishing. Dad, Grandpa and I would go to farm ponds and fish for bass.

“When the school bass fishing team started I wanted to be part of that, but I didn’t know either coach Albrecht or Prybil. The team had some meetings and talked about fishing and the team really got going when we went fishing in the early spring at a power plant cooling lake.”

When the sectional tournament came, Latting, along with Devon Gamboe and Austin Paytash, won and were propelled to the state finals, where they finished a very respectable sixth.

“Since I got back into fishing a few years ago, my fishing skills have improved big time,”Latting said. “I really like to fish frogs or flip (fishing techniques) but I’ll fish any way it takes to catch bass.

“At the sectional we were third and the top three places were pretty close in weight. Down at the state championship we came in second, and I caught the second largest fish of the tournament a 5 pound 11 ounce bass.

“I really love to fish and am able to get out with my grandpa three our four times a week. My goal is for Moline High School to send two teams to the state finals next year —we got some really good fishermen coming back and I plan to be one of those fishermen!”

- TV premier with Pregracke: “River Warriors” a Discovery Channel television program featuring Chad Pregracke and Living Lands and Waters and showcasing their yeoman’s work that has been done to clean up several major rivers across the US will premier tomorrow evening at 8 pm. A premier party open to the public will be held starting at 7 p.m. at the Capitol Theatre, Davenport.

- Concealed firearm meeting: The Rock Island County Right to Carry organization will host a town hall meeting for all interested starting at 9 a.m. Saturday at The Rock, 302 1st Street, Coal Valley. This is one of a series of meeting across Illinois to try and change Illinois law prohibiting concealed weapons being carried in public. Illinois is one of a small handful of states with this prohibition.
Bob Groene is outdoors writer for The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus, he can be reached at groene@qconline.com