Moline bass fishing team brings home trophy

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By Bob Groene, groene@qconline.com

Photo: Submitted Moline High School volunteer bass fishing coach Brian Prybil, Maroons’ senior Brady Barlow and junior Zach Latting show off their team’s catches at the IHSA state tournament last weekend. The Maroons finished second. One of rhe fish Latting is holding is the 5-pound, 12-ounce bass he caught — the second heaviest of the championship.

Confidence, not to be confused with arrogance, is a necessary part of a winning equation. The Moline High School bass fishing team, in just its second year of existence, has come a long way; and with that came confidence—especially to senior Brady Barlow and junior Zach Latting.

MHS just added more hardware to its trophy case—this addition a large beautiful wood piece signifying the second place finish that Barlow and Latting earned with their sterling two-day on-the-water performance at the Illinois High School Association bass fishing finals held last weekend.

“Weather and fishing conditions changed a lot from Friday,” Latting related. “We went from calm and sunny with great fishing to very chilly and windy with tough fishing.

“It was getting late in the fishing day Saturday and we only had only three keepers in the live well, so we decided and told Coach (required boat driver, Brian) Prybil that we were going to make a move to another spot. We did and on my first or second cast I caught our fourth keeper and not too long after, we caught our fifth, which was our limit fish.”

That confident move worked well as that 5-bass daily tournament limit weighing 11-pounds, 4-ounces, added to their first day limit weighing 14-4 propelled the casting duo from fifth to second place.

“We had a lotta bites—probably catching 30 bass and 8 keepers on Friday,” Barlow explained. “Most of our fish came by flipping plastic creature baits. But on Saturday, the wind was 20-30 miles per hour in our face and with the cold front, fishing was much tougher. We went from t-shirts to sweat shirts and rain suits.

“We found fish in a couple of spots and on Saturday were looking for just five nice keeper bites. We had confidence that if that happened, we’d catch a limit and we did.”

Excuses are never needed for a second-place finish among the 57 teams to qualify for the state finals. Moline and other teams from the northern portion of the lengthy north-south state of Illinois were at a bit of a disadvantage, having to drive for 10-plus hours to pre-fish and practice on huge Carlyle Lake.

“I was able to get to Carlyle for just one day and Coach Prybil got there two days,” MHS co-coach Tim Albrecht explained. “So we were able to pre-fish about two-thirds of the lake; and the winning team fished both days in the other third of the lake. But our area held good fish—Zach caught a 5- pound, 12-ouncer on the first day and another boy from another school caught a 5-13 not far away.”

Both coaches were very thankful to and for a number of individuals and companies that together made a great cause come together. But also said the real effort goes to all the young anglers on the MHS team. At the same time, he acknowledged that it all came down to Zach and Brady for the second-place finish.

“We do have a strong program with many young anglers coming up that are putting in serious time and effort to become even better competitive anglers.” Prybil said. “We are certainly looking forward to 2011 when we will have three returning team members who all have solid state fishing experience. Right now, we are looking into entering the national tournament that will be held in Arkansas.”

Coach Prybil also noted that new technology also played a role in the MHS fishing fortunes. Using an underwater side-imaging device they were able to locate several sunken fish-attracting boxes made of PVC pipe that had been placed near a point by anglers in year’s past. Knowing the boxes were there allowed the MHS anglers to key on those spots while other anglers fished the bank.