Kids look like pros fishing for bass

At first, they barely resembled kids. Mostly they were all business and perfect young gentlemen tending to a writer’s curiosity about their passion for tournament fishing.

Joey Nania, 14, of Liberty Lake and Scott Hodgkinson, 17, of Spokane Valley fit the image of a bass pro standing in the Hodgkinson family’s boat.

They’d apparently learned about “photo ops” and they wore spiffy clean Inland Empire Bass Club shirts that were already starting to sprout the logos of a few sponsors.

“Let’s go catch some bass,” Scott said after shaking my hand.

I met them at Liberty Lake last month as they honed their skills for a trip to Pennsylvania and the biggest challenge in their young but substantial angling lives.

Also aboard was Scott’s younger brother, Matt — another teenager with a man’s share of fishing experience.

This spring, at the first-ever youth qualifier held in Eastern Washington, the three boys earned their way to the Washington State Junior Bassmaster Tournament that was held Memorial Day weekend at Banks Lake.

Matt had edged Scott to win the senior division in the regional tournament, but Scott caught 9.95 pounds of bass in the state tourney, surpassing his brother by 1.45 pounds, to win the state senior title and an expense-paid trip to the CITGO Junior Bassmaster Classic in Pittsburgh.

Nania topped them all at the state tourney with 10.09 pounds of bass, winning the junior division and the other Washington berth to the Junior Bassmaster.

“Joey creamed us,” said Matt, who has a knack for telling it like it is and going with the flow. “I’m still going to the Bassmaster, but just to watch. Our whole family is going.”

The Junior Bassmaster is a preliminary event to the CITGO Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of professional bass fishing where the adults will compete for a $700,000 purse.

Barring any complications, the boys should be in Pittsburgh today for pre-fishing before the Junior Bassmaster on Monday. They’ll compete against the top two teenagers from each of 37 other states for prizes including a $5,000 scholarship and a bass boat.

But the pressure was off last month, when the boys had nothing more in mind than showing a writer they could catch fish.

In fact, the outing was a treat that could be seen clearly in the boys’ smiles as Scott throttled the 225-horse outboard on the Nitro 2000 and let the wind paste the skin against their faces in a one-boat race across the lake.

Scott cut the engine and drifted toward a group of docks near Nania’s lakeshore home.

“This is pretty exciting because Dad doesn’t really let us take out his boat all the time, in fact, hardly ever,” Matt said.

“Are you sure you don’t want to fish?” Nania asked. When I said I was sure, the boys turned their attention to fishing and never looked back.

“Joey knows all the fish in this lake by name,” Matt said as Nania hooked a largemouth on his third cast. “He’s caught every one of them at least once.”

Using polarized sunglasses, they often spotted their prey before they cast. Some bass were still guarding their nests while others were near docks, where bass often seek shade on sunny days.

Scott, a young man of few words, operated the electric trolling motor with his foot and kept casting as he moved the boat along the row of docks.

The boys told their fishing-life stories without taking their eyes off the water or breaking their cast-and-retrieve rhythm.

“I fished out of a canoe before I was big enough to take out the boat,” Nania said.

“I played baseball once, but it interfered too much with my fishing,” Matt said.

“I fish almost every day,” Nania said.

“Do you ever go water skiing or tubing,” I asked.

“A little, but mostly I’m fishing,” Nania said.

“Don’t you get tired of fishing?

“Nope.”

The answer was instant and firm.

Scott had paused the boat for a few minutes and all three boys were standing and casting tube baits past a nice-size bass sulking over a light-colored depression where it had cleared the bottom for its nest.

“That fish is locked on the nest,” Nania said. “She won’t move but she’ll bite.”

After a half dozen casts by each angler, Scott stepped on the electric motor again.

“Some fish don’t bite,” he said. “You can waste all day on a fish like that.”

The fishing rods were like extensions of their limbs, working with amazing precision

“My dad taught me this,” said Matt as he flipped his lure over a mooring rope and into the 8-inch slot between a boat and the dock. “The first time Dad did that I said ‘What the heck are you doing?’ Then he hit a 6-pounder and pulled it out between the boat and the dock and over the rope. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Smallmouth!” Scott said as he cranked in another in a series of fish and immediately let it go. “They’re taking over this lake. They’re more aggressive than largemouths.”

Nania, who’d caught the largest of the bass so far, showed he was human and whipped up a bird’s nest in his bait-casting reel after releasing a fish. The other boys didn’t even tease him, maybe because he quickly passed on the bag of tortilla chips.

“All the pro fishermen have Tracker, Skeeter or some other sponsor’s name in big letters on their boats,” Matt said. “I want to be sponsored by Doritos. That would be perfect.”

They constantly experiment with a witch’s brew of lures and additives, ranging from Smelly Jelly scent to a bottle of chartreuse dye into which they’d dip the curly tails of their plastic worms.

“Sometimes that’s all it takes to get a bass to bite,” Nania said.

The Hodgkinson boys’ dad, Todd, rang them up on their cell phone. Scott talked to him briefly as he peered off the bow of the boat before blurting out, “I have to go, Dad, I’m looking at a 4!”

In other words, he’d spotted a 4-pound bass he was determined to catch.

Minutes later, the cell phone rang again. Scott ignored it and kept casting, but Matt answered.

“It’s Kaley,” Matt called, but Scott and Nania were both in the bow of the boat zeroed in on the four-pounder. “Scott, you want to talk to Kaley?”

“No, not now.”

Matt moved up and all three boys stood on the bow, casting and retrieving until the bass finally swirled at Scott’s lure.

“Ohhh!” Matt and Nania groaned, grabbing their bellies and buckling over as though they felt Scott’s pain.

“He missed her yesterday, too,” Matt cried.

“I don’t think Kaley likes me any more,” Scott said, his mind momentarily free to contemplate something other than bass. “She doesn’t fish.”

Matt fielded another cell phone call. “It’s Christy,” he announced. “Oh,” he said looking at the smile on my face and feeling he owed an explanation. “She’s older.”

“She’s married,” Scott said.

“She doesn’t count,” Matt explained.

Nania hooked and quickly released another largemouth. Fishing was pretty easy for him at Liberty Lake, but he confided that he’d need a little luck to beat the kids fishing on their home waters at the Junior Bassmaster.

“It really helps to know the water and the structure,” he said.

Scott said they’d be researching on the Internet, looking for everything they can find about fishing the Allegheny River in late July.

“We’ll each be paired with another fisherman and one of the pros will be driving each boat,” Scott said.

“It will be so cool,” Nania said. “I’m probably going to bring six rods, three spinning and three bait-casting. I’ll take them all carry-on so I don’t lose them on the plane. That would be the worst.”

“We both want to be pros,” Scott said.

The cell phone rang again.

“I’m not going to get married until I’m older,” Nania said before anyone answered and to no one in particular as he made another cast. “It could be distracting.”