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Catching big ones
Fourteen-year-old Mitch Willis, of Lincoln, doesn't just throw his lure into the lake and play GameBoy while waiting for a 6-pound bass to tug on his line. He studies the lake, observes the weather, checks the current, decides on a lure -- all in an attempt to outsmart the fish.
"It's a lot of time and effort," said the two-time youth state champion for the Bass Anglers' Sportman Society. "You got to read everything that goes on in that lake to tempt the fish."
Willis took home his second title Aug. 17 by catching the most pounds of bass on Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, competing against anglers ages 15-18. The victory earns him a spot in the regional tournament Sept. 13 on Kerr Lake, along the Virginia/North Carolina border.
In 2007, Willis' state championship in the age 11-14 division sent him to Syracuse for the Junior Bassmaster World Championship, landing 29th out of 50.
A fisherman since age 2 when mom Misti first took him to a lake with a line, Willis is on a neighbor's pond nearly every day after school these days. On weekends, he takes his own bass boat out to various nearby lakes, experimenting with new lures and learning how habitat impacts bass behavior.
"You need to read the temperature of the water, see whether it's overcast. You need to read the current to see where it will blow the bait fish," he said, rattling off the tricks of the trade required to nab a "hawg," a bass of 6 pounds or larger.
If Willis speaks like it's a job to him, that's because he'd like it to be. He works locally with Mike Sustek, was paired in Syracuse with Jared Lintner and idolizes Mike Iaconelli, all professional anglers. He dreams of one day competing in the Bassmasters Classic series, which Willis calls the Super Bowl of angling.
His general advice to potential hawg-seekers sounds like a television commercial: "Take a kid fishing." It seems to have worked for him.
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