Pacemaker Fishing Forum

The fisher king of Ashburn

Sports
By Jason S. Rufner
Source: Loudoun Times-Mirror
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3 2009

Broad Run Fishing Club

President: Charlie Hill
Founded: Fall 2007
Members: 25 and growing
Activities: Guest speakers, weekend excursions, overnight adventures, chartered trips
Web site: pacemakerfishing.com/forum (click on BRHS Fishing Club)
Contact: redskinsfan360@hotmail.com

The idea was hatched in math class, where -- just for a moment -- Charlie Hill's thoughts wandered from formulas to fishing.

We should have a fishing club here at Broad Run High School, he thought.

Not just a club, he thought, but a resource from which he could learn more about his favorite avocation and share that knowledge with his friends, all the while having lots of fun.

And so it was that a year ago, Broad Run – a school named after a tributary of the Potomac – got its own fishing club.

Now boasting 25 regular members and growing, the club hosts frequent outings to local fishin' holes like Goose Creek, Beaverdam Reservoir and Kephart Landing. There are occasional overnight adventures to more distant locales, like when they journey to Elm's Creek Resort in West Virginia, looking for trout.

Out on the water, it's not just joking and jibing. It's business.

"The mind's always cranking out there," Hill related. "You're always looking at the water and at the sky trying to figure out where the fish are going to be."

At almost every monthly meeting, a guest speaker lectures on a fishing-related topic. For the Feb. 5 gathering, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist John Odenkirk will address the club.

In March, the club will have its own booth at the Orange County High School Sportsman's Show, where they'll display their feats and pick the brains of others.

Come April, club members will venture to Cobb Island, Md., to fish on board a charter boat. The next week they'll head to Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke to help out at a professional bass tournament and get autographs and tips from the pros.

In May, the club will hold its second annual tournament at Ashburn Village Lakes. (Hill placed second at the inaugural tournament.)

"It's not for the competition," said Hill of the tournament. "It's more about the learning. There are so many different parts about fishing: weather conditions, the color of the water, rods, bait -- artificial and live."

Hill thinks a lot about fishing. When he's not out on the water in his self-built boat, The Sheila, he's thinking about being out on the water. He's thinking about lures and flies and just how he's going to outsmart the next fish that happens along.

He fishes at least five days a week, usually more. He fishes for trout, crappie, stripers, bass -- large- and small-mouth. He creates his own rods, experiments with lures, and spends "hours every day" on the Internet and in magazines searching for tips and tricks.

He once caught 17 fish in one hour. His record is a 22-pound bass, a five-minute battle that left his arms aching but his will satisfied.

The young man is serious about this.

"Because it's fun," Hill responds when asked why he has such a fishing fetish. "I love the fight, I love the science, I love everything about it put together."

The Broad Run senior was first introduced to fishing by his father, John, who would take him along on excursions throughout his childhood.

But it wasn't until his sophomore year that he became "completely obsessed" with trying to get fish to choose his boat over their natural habitat. Now he finds himself teaching his father, a more leisurely fisherman, a thing or two.

"It went from my dad teaching me how to fish to me now out-fishing him and teaching him techniques," Hill stated.

The 17-year-old studies fishing as if it were a class, as if his future livelihood depended on it. And it might.

"I'd love to be professional some day," he admits.

To aid in the realization of that goal, Hill recently directed the BRHS Fishing Club to join the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.) Federation Nation of Virginia, a governing body that oversees professional tournaments and helps bring young fisherfolk along in the sport.

In early May the club will head to Aquia Creek to participate in a B.A.S.S. junior state-qualification event, fishing for the right to compete in the state tournament in August.

Next school year, Hill intends to enroll at Christopher Newport University to study history and education. But the BRHS Fishing Club will live on, as will Hill's fascination with fishing.

He is that rare individual who has found a credo at an early point in life, and has pursued it relentlessly.

"Life is short," he philosophizes. "Fish often."

Last edited by redskinsfan360 (Feb-03-09 5:01PM)