MLHS fishermen qualify for national tournament

MOSES LAKE — Family and friends of Moses Lake High School junior Cole Tabert will hold a fundraising car wash from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the parking lot in front of Quiznos, 933 North Stratford Rd. The money raised will go toward Cole’s trip, with his fishing partner Dylan Hansen, to the national high school bass fishing tournament in Kentucky Lake, Tenn., in August. Dylan graduated last weekend with the MLHS class of 2016.

Cole and Dylan qualified for national competition by finishing second in the Washington State Bassmaster High School tournament last fall. Two teams from each state qualify for national competition.

Cole said he’s been fishing all his life, he was hooked on tournament bass fishing from the beginning. One of his friends asked him if he would be interested in partnering to fish in a bass tournament, he said. “After fishing with him ...”

“One time,” interjected Cole’s dad Carey.

That one time was enough. Anybody who thinks bass fishing is boring, sitting in the boat trolling around the lake, is dead wrong, as far as Cole is concerned. “It’s always fun, especially tourney-wise. I like the excitement, all the boats around me.”

Success in tournament bass fishing requires careful attention to detail. “It takes a lot of skill, a lot of patience,” Cole said. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing.”

“A lot of homework,” Carey Tabert said.

“You have to study your lake,” Cole said – bass like specific geographic features, and part of preparation is finding those at the tournament site. A tournament competitor should determine where the fish are, where they move when water conditions change, what bait works. How does fish behavior change when the weather changes? How does it change when boat traffic increases? “You’ve got to break down the lake to find fish,” he said.

That’s why Cole usually makes a trip to the site before the tournament, he said, just to get some of those answers. But that only provides so much information. “The pre-fish day is always different than the tournament.”

Cole cited the example of a recent tournament in the Potholes; he's fished the water a lot, he was prepared, but conditions were completely different from the pre-tournament trip. He had to change his whole plan. “It just varies with what the fish want to do,’ he said.

That’s why, in Cole’s opinion, success in tournament fishing requires a lot of skill. Anybody can catch one or two fish, he said, but a tournament requires about 20 pounds of bass. And that's skill as well as luck, he said.

Cole always accompanied his family on fishing trips, but they didn’t always hold his interest when he was a kid, he said. “When I was young, I would always want to play with the worms and stuff,” he said. That started to change when he got his own boat, which had belonged to his grandpa Art Tabert. “I kind of ventured out on my own.” He got a part-time job and put the money toward a new boat. When Cole got interested in bass tournaments, Carey Tabert sold his boat and bought a bass boat.

Cole has sponsors, but it’s still an expensive trip. He has a job in addition to his school schedule, and he’s going to be working this summer. People who can’t make Saturday’s car wash but want to help can contact Carey Tabert, 509-989-6498.

If they make it, the team won’t have a chance to pre-fish Kentucky Lake. “We have contacts,” Carey Tabert said, fishermen who know Kentucky Lake. But it might not go the way they hope, Cole added. “I think we’ll do good. And if you don’t, you don’t, That’s bass fishing.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.