The bass fishing team looks to gain more recognition while putting together a successful season.

It is one of the newer sports clubs at NIU and was founded in 2011 by Steve McClone, who is now a senior. The team has quietly gone about practicing at the lagoons and small ponds around DeKalb and has built that into a quality season.

During the last fishing season the team jumped into competitive action. This season it took a step back and went to the basics. This change helped everyone on the team.

“Teaching other people makes our team better,” said club president Derek Malanowksi. “This year we have sent many different people to many different tournaments. Everyone teaches somebody else something different or new. There are so many different techniques in fishing that you can learn from other people, so now one person has all the skills that you learn from other people, and that definitely makes you more successful.”

The club has 19 men and six women and is broken up into two teams. The top fisherman and members with seniority are chosen to compete in the competitive tournaments. Members who do not make this team work on refining their skills so they can one day jump up to the competitive roster.

The competitive team has placed at many big tournaments throughout the country. It qualified for nationals in Boat U.S., where it placed 114th out of more than 300 teams. In the Midwest Series, the combo of McClone and Malanowski placed second in the last tournament of the season to qualify for the classic, which is the series championship in the spring. Last week, McClone and graduate student Clayton Black placed second in the Illinois State All-star tournament.

All of the team’s success this season can be attributed to hard work, dedication and teamwork, said McClone.

“We practice three, four times a week,” McClone said. “We meet early before school to go fish the lagoons, and we have good chemistry as a team. As a whole, we teach each other instead of saying ‘I am the best’ and not helping people out. The more knowledge you get in fishing, the better you get. It has a luck factor to it, but we all help each other out, and that makes a difference of a team coming together.”

The team coming together has led it to a 41st ranking in the Association of Collegiate Anglers, which has more than 600 teams across the United States. It also qualified for the FLW Nationals and is the only team from Illinois to accomplish that feat this season.

“We are definitely very excited about [nationals],” Malanowksi said. “It is probably going to be farther away, but it’s definitely a great experience for NIU. It kind of puts us out there a little bit. We’re one of the smaller schools in Illinois in terms of fishing teams and I think this helps with recognition.”