By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

As anglers across Minnesota get ready for fishing opener on May 10, so does the New York Mills Fishing League. The League is spearheaded by William Grieger and Chad Keskitalo, both active fishermen, who want to share their love of the sport with local youth.

With four fishing dates along with a final championship in August, the fishing league members will be fishing Little Pine, Big Pine, Rush and Star Lakes throughout June and July in hopes of catching some score-winning fish. Each event involves a good deal of planning and participation from students, captains, and volunteers.

“I enjoy the cast of events,” said Grieger. “It’s a lot packed into a couple hours. It’s only two and a half hours of fishing, but then legwork to get and plan for the week, Chad takes care of setting up all the boat captains and the attendance pieces, who’s coming, who’s not, figuring out the parking, getting volunteers.

“Some accesses can’t handle 30 boats,” he continued, “so we have to contact private landowners and oftentimes they are willing to let us park there. Then doing the awards at the end, figuring out who’s first and who’s eighth and giving out gift crds for those winners. The chaos of that two and a half hours is insane. It’s fun, but it’s busy.”

Grieger said that they try to be proactive about letting lake associations know who they are and what their dates for fishing each lake will be. The league works closely with these associations in order to limit overcrowding of lakes and to create relationships between organizations.

“If it’s your lake and every week of the summer you see a fishing league, it kind of frustrates some lake owners, so at the beginning we work very closely with the lake associations to tell them what we’re doing,” said Grieger. “Some of those associations have donated us money or time and even show up to help with backing in cars or to serve the meal.”

Though the league doesn’t have their first event until June 12, they begin planning far in advance as there is much to do to prepare for each member of the team. This year 26 students have signed up to participate. Along with getting the fishing season events lined up, Grieger also does some preparation within his own classroom at the New York Mills High School.

“Some of the other things we do during school lunches,” said Grieger. “I have the kids learn to tie spinner rigs for walleyes, for slow death rigs. And they can add those to their tackle boxes so they can be ready when they go to League. Learning to tie their own lines so they can be independent and their boat captains can focus on driving the boat. Trying to make our kids independent and able to fish on their own.”

Another thing that Grieger does to instill a love for fishing at the school is by taking the fourth grade students to Glendalough State Park for their field trip each year. Each student is able to do some bobber fishing and learn the basics of catching fish, something which nearly every student is able to accomplish in their hour next to the water.

“For several, it’s been their first fish, so that’s quite a cool experience,” said Grieger. “Having their teacher or parent with them helping make that memory of helping them bait the hook, cast, or reel it in. In their hour session, you can’t teach them much, but at least they get the joy of fishing and watching a bobber, and maybe we’ll have a future fishing team member from those who caught their first fish.”

Along with the possibility of new members each year, Grieger is hopeful to recruit some new boat captains as well. Boat captains are adult leaders who are interested in taking a few kids out fishing during the League season. Between practice days and the official events, boat captains are a critical part of each team.

“We couldn’t be successful if we didn’t have our boat captains,” said Grieger. “Anyone that has a boat that would want to take kids out fishing—whether it’s a 14 foot Lund with a 10 horse motor on the back or if its a modern 20 foot fishing boat with a 250 horse—we have everything in this league and we have winners with both.

“All our surrounding schools have kids who want to participate, we just don’t have enough boats for them all yet,” he continued. “Most of the kids have their own gear, so it would just be being a mentor, spending time with them, teaching them what you like about fishing, taking them out in the boat. Some fish more than five events, they’ll go for practice nights, learn a new technique or something. We don’t micromanage that part, it’s all based on the schedule of the student.”

One bonus this year is the fact that students and captains won’t have to travel as far as they have in the past with fairly local lakes, all within a short drive from home.

“I’m happy to see that our lakes are much closer to home this year,” said Grieger. “We have had to drive a lot farther, so it makes it much easier for our captains as well as our anglers to not have so much windshield time and have more fishing time.”

Alongside the exciting parts of the league including the championship in August which will allow for the League’s top nine point-getters, along with one event that the NY Mills team will host this year, Grieger is also looking forward to the possibility of several local students receiving scholarships this year.

“We should have one if not two scholarship winners that will be announced,” he said. “It’s the first year our league in general is handing out scholarships, so I think we may have two winners. They’re decent scholarships, they’re $2,000 each, so I’m pretty excited to have some of the kids that partake and sold tickets and fished and have been a part of the championships, for them to get a little something back for their time and love for fishing.”