For Ola High School sophomores Christopher Newman and Josh Rogers, fishing is about more than relaxing on a boat with a line in the water.

  Indeed, for them, it’s all about the adrenaline rush they get from doing it.

  “You don’t know exactly what you’re going to catch,” said Newman, 15. “If you do hook into a big one, that feeling – that adrenaline rush – it’s just fun.”

  “When you’re trying to land them and turn them, that’s the real fun part,” added Rogers, 16. “It’s like something anybody else enjoys. If you like playing baseball or something, it’s the same thing. It’s the same for us. How would you feel doing whatever you like to do?”

  Newman and Rogers, both of McDonough, recently placed fourth out of 144 teams to qualify for the statewide Bassmaster High School Fishing Tournament. The event is set for June 7-8 at Lake Clarks Hill on the Savannah River.

  Newman is also a member of the wrestling team at Ola High School, whereas Rogers is a catcher for the baseball team. Although both teenagers acknowledged that fishing is perhaps a more laid-back sport, they maintained that a certain amount of strategy is required to be successful at it.

  “When you’re wrestling, you’re basically fighting and doing moves,” said Newman. “In fishing, you’re just kind of relaxed, casting and reeling them in. You don’t really practice every single day. You go out there and pre-fish the lake the day before or the week before, to see where the fish are at and what depth.”

  The goal of the state tournament is to determine who can catch the most weight for five fish in an nine-hour period.The duo earned a slot in the event during a competition earlier this month at Lake Blackshear, where they caught a total of 12.67 pounds of fish.

  “We didn’t think we were going to do that good on Blackshear,” said Newman. “The day we pre-fished, we did not find a very good pattern or anything. But the next day, we started catching and figured out basically a pattern and started fishing it for the rest of the day.”

  Newman began fishing when he was just three years old, in what has always been a fun activity for him. He said he also appreciates the challenge involved in testing his skills against his fellow anglers across the state.

  “When you get into tournaments, it’s competitive, trying to see who can get the most weight, catch the biggest fish, have the best plot to go out there and find some good fish on different docks where you fish and at what depth.”

  “In Georgia, there’s a lot of different lakes, and they all have large amounts,” continued Newman. “Some of them have spots, and some of them have hybrids and different types of bass, but the types that we fish for in the lakes we fish — they have spots, large-mouth bass and small-mouth. Those are the species that you fish for. There’s usually regulations of what length — usually 14 inches. You have to go out there and if you catch a fish, it has to be over 14 inches in length.”

  Rogers, too, has been fishing for as long as he can remember. He fondly recalls fishing at his parent’s lakehouse when he was growing up in Alabama.

  Rogers offered a few tips of his own regarding how to bring in the best haul of fish.

  “Sometimes whenever you cast underneath a dock, you have to cast and hit the wood of the dock, or else the fish won’t bite,” he said. “Sometimes they’re really finicky, and you have to come up with certain strategies.”

  The tournament will feature participants from nearly 200 boats from all over the state. Rogers said he is eagerly anticipating the two-day tournament.

  “I’m just about the championship. I’m looking forward to it, because it’s two days. All the other tournaments, you fish in just one day. They’re just on Saturday. In state championship, you fish Friday, and it carries over to Saturday, so it’s your two-day weight total.”

  Both teens expressed their excitement about qualifying for the state tournament. Newman, in particular, said he is looking forward to seeing how high they will place at the event.

  “I’ve heard it’s a really good lake to fish, so I’m ready to see how big a fish we can catch,” he said. “It makes you anxious. I’m ready to go. The lake is a really good lake.”

  Newman and Rogers are the youngest members of the fishing team at Ola High School to ever qualify for state competition, said team sponsor Kevin Bagley. He is in his first year as sponsor of the fishing team at Ola High School, which took first-place honors at the state fishing tournament in 2013 and 2016.

  Bagley said in order for a Georgia school to have a fishing team, it must follow a strict set of guidelines.

“In order to have a fishing team, it must be sponsored by a faculty member,” he said. “Every high school is allowed to have this. You just have to apply for a BASS membership. You create a roster, and then you also have to go through a series of steps to ensure that the boys will qualify.”

  Team members, said Bagley, must also complete a 12-hour boater-safety course in order to be put on a roster, most often in groups of two.

“There are approximately 12 tournaments in a year,” said Bagley. “They’re all in the state of Georgia, but they go from Bainbridge in south Georgia all the way to Lake Hartwell or Chatuge. We don’t have a home lake here because Lake Jackson is not one that is on the schedule. The home lake for these guys is considered, for the most part, Lake Lanier.”

  Bagley said he is proud of Newman and Rogers for their extracurricular accolades.   “They’re good guys,” said Bagley. “They have already been to state competition before in their respective baseball and wrestling roles. We’re just glad that they’re doing well, because they’re good representatives of the team. The better they do, the more advertisement it is for the fishing team so that we can get more people in future years.”