Northfield High School bass fishing team continues to grow, succeed

Despite having to contend with this summer’s unusually large amounts of rainfall and high water conditions, the Northfield High School bass fishing team is enjoying another season of success in 2024.

After sending three teams to the state finals in 2023, Northfield recently completed the second of three regular season tournaments on Monday, July 15 and it is looking forward to the final qualifying open that will be held on Cannon and Wells Lakes on Monday, Aug. 5 near Faribault.

A big change this season for the Raiders was a switch in conference affiliations. After competing in the Southeast Metro Conference last year, Northfield is now competing in the Greater Southeast Conference this season. The change places Northfield into competition with schools located outside of the Twin Cities area in the southeast part of the state.

As members of the previous conference, most of the conference opens were usually held on lakes in the metro area. The move to the new conference now means that many of the open tournaments take place on the Mississippi River since there are not as many as large lakes in the conference’s area that can host fishing competitions.

Northfield opened its 2024 season with a trip to Pool 4 and Pool 5 on the Mississippi River near Wabasha on June 17. With a roster of 33 this season, Northfield placed five among the top 11 finishers at the first open.

Tops on the list for Northfield in seventh place were the teams of Hunter Larson and Oren Alexander, along with Easton Truman and Jake Larsen. Both duos were tied with fish totals of 2.77 pounds.

Other Northfield anglers around the top 10 included Walker Sorem and Jacob Peters in ninth place, the team of Parker Malecha and Sam Harner in 10th place, and Grayson Gray and Jake Lorence in 11th place. In total, Northfield had 16 teams compete at the first open tournament.

The season continued with another trip to the Mississippi River for an open tournament July 15 that took place on Pool 5, Pool 5A and Pool 6 near Winona. Once again, the NHS anglers had to deal with high water conditions during the tournament that posed a variety of challenges.

“I would say it has definitely been a challenge because there is so much more floating debris you have to watch out for,” Larson about fishing conditions on July 15. “It has been a lot harder to fish because the current (on the Mississippi) is flowing so fast and it has been hard to fish in the main channel of the river. You have the trolling motor on 10 and you are still drifting backwards.”

The conditions may not have been ideal but the team of Larson and Alexander were able to find fish and they finished the tournament in third place with a five fish total of 12.17 pounds. The result was impressive considering the duo almost missed the tournament due to boat issues.

“On Sunday, we were pre-fishing and our boat broke down. So we called our coach Craig Johnson and he said he would boat captain for us and use his boat,” Larson said. “We only had one spot that was good from pre-fishing yesterday and it was down in Winona and we went down there and stayed all day and caught 30 fish there.”

“We kept three smallies (smallmouth bass) and two largies (largemouth bass) for our keepers that we weighed in…it was mainly a smallie spot but we found out that there were largies up in the weeds,” Larson said. “We were catching a lot of them on top water, and they were all chasing minnows up there in the grass.”

According to Johnson, the water was up almost 10 feet and the team Larson and Alexander were fishing in areas that are typically dry ground during years of normal river levels.

“Several boats didn’t bring in any fish because of the high water but these guys found a great spot and stuck it out,” Johnson said about his team’s success on July 15.

The Northfield bass fishing team hopes to continue its strong performances at the final conference tournament at Cannon-Wells in August with hopes of qualifying for the upcoming state tournament that will take place on Sept. 7-8 on the Mississippi River in Wabasha.

The top five duos in the conference year-end standings will gain an automatic trip to the state finals and there is also a last chance regional qualifying event that will give those teams not in the top five another shot at qualifying for the state meet.

Last year, Larson and Alexander placed 16th overall at the state championship that was held on Gull Lake near Brainerd. Northfield’s Jake Geiger and Ben Geiger along with the team of Taylor Standord and Ian Weimer also qualified for the state tournament in 2023.

With the high water conditions and low fish numbers at the first meet of the year, the Raiders have several teams in contention for gaining bids to the upcoming state meet, which is sanctioned by the Minnesota Junior B.A.S.S. Nation organization.

“With so few boats scoring last time (at Wabasha), everyone is pretty much in the hunt,” Johnson said about his team’s chances for gaining state bids,”Johnson said. “These guys (Alexander and Larson) are sitting pretty good. We will have to wait and see how things shape out.”

A big asset this season for Northfield has been the support of its sponsors and a grant from the Department of Natural Resources that has provided the team with equipment and resources.

“Our sponsors have been awesome this year and the team got a $5000 grant from the DNR, so each kid got a new rod and reel combo and lots of baits so that has been nice,” Johnson said.

Musky fishing

The Northfield Fishing team’s primary focus is on bass fishing, but several members of the squad have recently participated in musky fishing tournaments this summer.

Ben Bradley, who will be a ninth grader at Northfield High School in 2024-25, competed in the Minnesota Youth Muskies Tournament Trail that is run by Youth Heritage Outdoors. The Tournament Trail is a series of virtual qualifiers that take place on weeks in June and July and also serve as a qualifier for the Minnesota High School Muskies Tournament that will take place in August on Lake Vermillion.

During the tournament, participants can pick any two days of the tournament to fish and at the lake of their choice. Results are then recorded online.

Bradley and his fishing partner Jacob Peters fished on French Lake, which is just west of Faribault and is stocked with muskies on a regular basis by the DNR. Bradley did not end up qualifying for the state tournament but he did manage to land a 48.5 inch musky during his time on French Lake.

“It was a rainy gray day, no sun at all and raining and we were trolling spoons,” Bradley said of his experience. “It was pretty awesome. It is nice to have a lake for musky that is pretty close to home.”

Bradley also participates with the NHS fishing team at bass tournament but he did enjoy his first experience fishing for muskies in a tournament setting.

“I probably enjoyed the musky tournament more because you can catch a bigger fish,” said Bradley, who has fished for much of his life. “ I mainly fish around here but sometimes we go up north. I like to fish on the St. Croix River for walleye and for bass fishing I like to go around the French Lake area, and for musky I go to French.”

Northfield High School junior Ethan Gagner is another local angler who has participated in one of the high school musky tournaments this summer. In his first experience fishing in a tournament setting, Gagner fished at the Twin Cities Chapter of Muskies, Inc. qualifier that was held at Lake Waconia on June 12.

Gagner did not land a musky during the tournament but he did have one follow his lure and he also managed to catch two Northern pike that measured in at 31 1/4 inches and 28 1/2 inches.

“This was the first tournament I’ve actually done and my first musky tournament as well…it was fun,” said Gagner, who was encouraged to participate in the tournament by Johnson.

Gagner is not a member of the NHS bass fishing team but he is considering joing the team in 2025. He likes to fish at locations up north along with frequent river fishing trip with his buddies while in Northfield.

“Musky fishing is definitely new this year for me but I’ve been fishing for pike for probably 10 years since I was six and I really like it,” Gagner said.