It took a mere five hours for Ryan Wood to sound like his angling mentors.
When asked how and where he and teammates Frank and Terry McClymont caught their five-pound smallmouth enroute to capturing the fifth-annual Kid/Pro Tournament here Sunday, the 11-year-old played it safe.
“I don’t think we could tell you what we were using or where we were. Sorry about that,” Wood replied as the McClymonts used areas as possible holes for the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Champ-ionship, which gets underway tomorrow morning.
“[But] Terry hooked it and it was flipping around and it took a long time to get in the net. I thought it was a northern [pike] for a while,” the youngster added.
A first-time bass angling experience for Wood, he said this outing might spur him and his 15-year-old brother, Travis, to enter the big derby one of these years.
“Someday, maybe me and my brother will think about going in the draw. Someday,” he remarked.
The trio bagged 11.28 pounds with their three-fish limit—almost half-a-pound more than fellow “kid” Steve Pawlikoski fishing with FFCBC anglers Bruce Ness and Brad Carlson.
“We were out earlier and it was slow going. Later on in the afternoon, we found some good fish,” recalled Terry McClymont. “We got that one big one and that makes the difference.
“We caught a lot of fish after that.”
While 25 youngsters got to head out on Rainy Lake with their pro counterparts, 15 of the original 40 who had signed up couldn’t go due to a lack of anglers.
“It’s very important these kids are exposed to this stuff,” said Clint Barton, whose partner Denis Barnard went fishing with Tyler Huntley. “It’s disappointing some of these [higher-profile] fishermen aren’t coming out to support it.”
“We consider this a part of the whole week. We really enjoy it,” added McClymont, a Fort Frances native who now lives in Winnipeg.
Still, by all accounts, this year’s Kid/Pro was another success as the time between the boats’ arrival and the awards ceremony were peppered with stories on their outings.
“They were probably the best group of kids we had to work with. Very attentive. They asked a lot of pertinent questions,” said Rick Socholotuk, who led a seminar on safety, technique, and fish care last week.
“Every year I’ve fished this, I haven’t had one rude or cocky kid,” said veteran U.S. angler Larry Hullett, who took Jamie Bragg on the lake with partner Gene Boyer.
“I don’t think your town has any of them,” he added.
Here are the top 10 finishers in the 2002 Kid/Pro Tournament:
1. Ryan Wood (with Frank McClymont/Terry McClymont)—11.28 pounds
2. Steve Pawlikoski (with Bruce Ness/Brad Carlson)—10.80
3. Jacob Witherspoon (with Dean Howard/Wayne Howard)—10.51
4. Alex Shoemaker (with Doug Wright/Guy Johnstone)—9.79
5. Robin Sieders (with Jimmy Klick/Fletcher Klick)—8.69
6. Casey Grant (with Dave Lindsay/Colin Gluting)—8.41
7. Jon McCoy (with Cory Costa)—7.16
8. Tim Desjardins (with John Maffei/Twyla Robert)—7.02
9. Brandon Legarie (with Greg Stahn/Theo DeGroot)—6.29
10. Jeff Angus (with Kurt Johnson/Pat Jeffries)—6.21
