By snoadmin
For Cal State Long Beach students Justin Gangel and Alex Cox, fishing is not a mere pastime for lazy summer days. It’s a serious affair, netting them some serious results.
The pair is gearing up to represent CSULB at the Forest L. Wood College National Championships at Beaver Lake in Rogers, Ark., on Saturday and Sunday. Gangel and Cox earned an invitation to the national tournament, winning first place in the National Guard FLW College Fishing Western Conference Championship in Utah in September.
Competing as a pair against teams from Arizona, Washington, Oregon and California, Gangel and Cox came out on top of the 20-team competition by catching 14 bass weighing a total of 21 pounds – a full six fish and five pounds more than the second-placed team.
Gangel, a senior environmental science major, said that he and Cox, a senior kinesiology major, were confident of success after a trip to Beaver Lake during spring break.
“We went there to learn the lake, to give ourselves an idea of what we need to do when we go back,” Gangel said. “We had a lot better practice than we expected. Even local people said that the weights we brought in, the size and quantity we caught – they said that no doubt we would win.”
Anglers, or fishermen, fish in teams of two in the national championship, with the biggest five fish caught each day weighed and counted toward the final total. Fishing from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, the team with the greatest total weight of fish caught at the end of the three days is declared the winner, according to Gangel.
A win in the FLW Championship would net the CSULB team $3,000, as well as a Ranger Z117 fishing boat that retails for up to $28,000, according to the competition’s website. While the $30,000 grand prize is lucrative, Gangel said he is more interested in the final aspect of the winner’s prise: an invitation to compete at the Forrest Wood Cup, what Gangel calls “the Super Bowl of bass fishing” and the first step to realising a childhood dream.
“Anglers compete all through the year to get into this competition, and two spots are reserved for the college fishing champions,” Gangel said. “Winning this competition would be a start to becoming a professional. Becoming a professional bass fisherman is something I’ve dreamt about since I was five years old.”
While Gangel said that the team’s preparation has been good, he said that no amount of strategy or organization will overcome the number one factor in fishing: luck. He said that fishing is about keeping confidence in your skills and your strategy, and waiting for luck to strike and for the fish to bite.
“There could be a much better angler fishing the wrong spot, and he will get beat by someone less talented in the right spot,” he said. “You can do everything right and still not catch anything.”