September Indee Bass Club Tournament

The last tournament of the 2019 calendar year took place this past Saturday on the Wapsi River here in Independence.  Eighteen students signed up for the event to test their fishing skills against the smallmouth and largemouth bass of the area.  When the event was scheduled all the coaches were just hoping for good weather...it was perfect weather for a September event.  Partly sunny skies greeted the anglers all morning, the event took place from 8am-Noon, and not a drop of rain fell from the sky.  Nine boat captains made this event possible, as each pair or team of students is in a boat with an adult to operate the boat as well as teach the students as much as possible about the sport of bass fishing.  Captains included; Chad Postel, Randy Toale, Kevin Sidles, Karter Wendling, Guy Stacy, Chad O'Brien, Sean Stephenson, Todd Reed and Brian Miller.
Of those nine boats 5 of them were able to bring keeper bass to the live weigh-in on the banks of the Wapsi River.  Students can travel all along the river in search for the bass with their captains and cast whatever artificial baits they can at the fish trying to trick them into biting.  Reports of rock bass, crappie, northern pike, walleye, smallmouth bass and largemouth bass being caught all throughout the day made it fun for the students involved.  Although the Wapsi river gives up a lot of fish species, it is largemouth and smallmouth bass that the anglers can weigh in.  As with any tournament throughout the state one team always seems to be around more fish than others and on this day it was Dalton Hoover and Jackson Toale.  They had five keeper bass that weighed 12.95#, a new Indee Bass Club record!  Jackson also had the biggest bass of the day that weighed in at 2.99#.   Congrats to those kids as they caught some true Wapsi River giants!  Second place went to Jackson Wolf and Zack Sidles, they had two keeper bass that totaled 3.65#.  In third place was Gabe Campbell and Zach Jimmerson with 2.79#.  Fourth place went to Scott Faust weighing in two nice smallmouth for 2.75# and rounding out the top five was Teegan McEnany and Caleb Weber with one largemouth bass that weighed 1.79#.
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The top two teams and big bass winner earned wooden plaques for their efforts and bonus prizes donated by Scheels of Cedar Falls and Hank's Bait and Tackle in Waterloo.  Just two of the fine club sponsors.  Prizes valued at over $600 were also given out to students at the tournament in a random drawing, these were provided by the other sponsors of the bass club; The Buchanan County Wildlife Association, Bank Iowa, Klever Concrete, Quantum Rods/Reels, The Rod Glove and private anonymous donors.  The weigh-in facility was once again donated by the Hot Rod Baits Bass Series, and a big thank you to the weigh-in helpers of Kevin Jimmerson and Sean Stephenson.
As you can see the Indee Bass Club is helped along by community support and volunteers throughout the year.  Volunteer coaches/organizers include; Garry Anderson, Keith Donnelly and Todd Reed.  For more information about the club find them online at their website or Facebook page by searching "Indee Bass Club".