https://www.facebook.com/181186455082660/

Menomonie High School fishing Team, E4990 429TH Avenue, Menomonie, WI (2026)

02/02/2025

It's been about a month since I last posted so I thought I'd give an update on the fishing team today. The 300 challenge that we fished in December is coming to a close today with us currently in 9th place but there are two teams fishing today that may make a run at us and move us back to 10th or 11th. I'll update later when it's official. There were a total of 101 teams total to fish in that tournament. So even if we drop to 11th that's still a pretty good showing.

On January 12th we fished lake Menomin in a tournament sponsored by the Altoona Fishing Team. The goal of this tournament was to catch three each of six different specie's of fish. We were not able to catch any bass that day and only put one walleye on the ice. So in that tournament we finished 11th out of 30 teams. Not exactly what we had hoped for but still respectable.

We are now preparing for the state tournament on the 15th of February in the La Crosse area (most of pools 7 and 8 on the Mississippi backwaters). Yesterday much of the team went down to scout for where we will likely fish on the 15th. We eliminated many areas for various reasons after fishing them and targeted a couple of areas as potential spots to fish on the 15th. The evening of the 14th the Association is having a banquet expecting more than 1,000 people in attendance. Then on the 15th we will fish from 7 am - 2:30 pm. If anyone has a secret honey hole in that area that they would be willing to share we would sure appreciate it! One of the issues that I am most concerned about is the amount of people that will concentrate in an area not much larger than Lake Menomin. Imagine having nearly 1,000 people on the lake at one time!

I'll do an update on the tournament when we can.

Thanks to the students that are fishing and even more importantly thanks to the parents for their support!

12/31/2024

Team does well in first Tournament of the year!

Another great day to be on the ice for the Menomonie High School Fishing Team. We fished in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Fishing Association Mixed Bag 300 Challenge Tournament. For this tournament you can fish any public lake in Wisconsin. The goal is to catch 15 panfish and 10 game fish that total more than 300 inches. After the catch we take photos of the fish to document their size then release them.

The six boys fishing this past Sunday were on the ice before 7 am and most stayed out until after 5 pm. Although they caught and registered many more fish than the required minimum the longest 25 fish accumulated more than 419"! Each student caught fish and contributed to the total catch.

The conditions were not ideal given the weather but they were not as bad as they may have been. The coaches were up early checking the ice conditions to make sure that the ice had not become unsafe after the rain and warmer temperatures. Thanks again to the parents that helped out and of course Stan Tischer for his knowledge and assistance as well.

The next tournament is in Ashland, we are checking to see if enough kids want to go up for that one. We'll keep you posted on how that goes.

In case you are wondering, our 419 inches of fish puts us currently in first place with six other teams having fished. Teams have until February 2nd to register fish for this tournament. Hopefully our 419 will hold up but either way it was a great day on the ice!

Check out Wisconsin Interscholastic Fishing Association online www.studentfishing.com

In the photos Eric Zydowsky is holding one of his northern in the first photo. In the second photo shows Max Ericson and Eric are admiring Charlie Mikesell's catch. The third photo has Ethan Nelson checking out the catches by Tyler Nelson and Bricin Leisses.

06/21/2024

I would like to thank the family of Tom Koransky a long time member of the Dunn County Fish and Game for donating some of Tom's ice fishing gear to the fishing team. The tip ups, rods and tackle will come in handy next winter!

Tom passed away a few months ago and his family wanted his equipment to get used by the student anglers. Thanks again to Tom's family we'll put the gear to good use.

06/21/2024

Update on fishing team- back in April we thought we'd try to fish in the Tournament on the Fox River in Green Bay. We took off on Friday night after a tennis match and although the evening started out great it didn't finish so much. Near Thorp my trailer decided to break sending us to the side of the road unable to go any farther. After waiting for the tow truck and getting the boat and trailer loaded on a flatbed for more than six hours we were off again. During our wait I called a friend and us up a boat in Green Bay so we could still fish. After picking up his boat we arrived at the hotel around 3 am. At 5 am we were up and headed to the tournament. After a long day of fishing we ended up not doing real well. But Bricin was a trooper. Fishing all day after being up almost all night!

Not the results we were looking for!

Now fast forward to early June we quickly set up a couple of boys to fish in the "Panfish Palooza" which was an event where we could fish any public Wisconsin Lake. We had two boys fishing with two dads and two coaches in two boats. In this tournament we could count five fish caught by the coaches and 8 crappies, 8 bluegills and 8 perch caught by the students. For a total of 29 fish. The first lake we went to we caught most of our fish except we didn't get into any crappies. So we moved to a different lake in hopes of finding some crappie and larger perch. The move paid off in the perch department but we didn't find the crappie until it was too late in the day with only minutes to go in the tournament. As you can see from the pictures the started with rain and ended with beautiful sunshine.

We ended the day in 5th place just 36.5 inches out of first place and that's being short four crappies! Not a bad day. Eric and Charlie did well once again! And of course thanks to Stan for scouting and driving the second boat! Can't not mention the dads as well, Brian and Joe for getting up at 4 am to get the boys to the lake in time for the tournament.

That's it for summer, one more tournament but too much going on to fish over the 4th.

We'll be back at it in once the water gets hard enough to safely travel. I'm also planning a few evenings out on Lake Menomin for the students, hoping to get a few boats to take the students out for bit and possible get some local fisherman to give them some pointers. More on that later. We are always looking for more to join us. So if you know a student that like to fish have them message me and we'll get them on our email list.

Many of the tournaments are for High Schoolers only but there are some where middle schoolers can participate as well.

03/04/2024

One last message about the High School Fishing Team (Ice version) before we switch over to open water next month. Here’s a recap of the season, we started with a small team of anglers in a “virtual” tournament where you could fish any public water in Wisconsin. We fished the cut off on the Red Cedar River, for those that don’t know that is about as far up river you can go out of Lake Menomin and ice fish. The boys did well even though they came and went that first day with other activities we had angers on the ice from 7 am to midnight with most leaving at dark. But one stuck it out! We placed 38th out of 69 teams in that tournament with a good bag of bluegills but lacking in the northern department.
The next tournament we fished in Chetek, again a small team of dedicated anglers with most fishing from 7 am to dark (that was the night of the final Packer game of the season) and again one sticking it out to the bitter end. For this tournament we placed 10th in this tournament out of 38 teams. We also won $250 from Striker Ice to be used for team gear in that tournament. Thanks to Striker!
In the final tournament of the year – the state Championship – you guessed it we again had a small team. But they did a great job, catching all of the fish to fill the bag for the tournament – five northern, five bass, ten bluegill, ten crappie and ten perch. The week leading up to the tournament was tough because we were not sure that we had good ice. But thanks to a few of us driving around checking out lake access and ice conditions we found a few good spots for the tournament day. We felt that it would take about 550 total inches of fish to win the tournament so that was our goal for the day. We fell short of that goal but still placed well and I believe the boys had a lot of fun. We ended up in 14th place with 69 teams participating with 460 inches of fish. For a small first year team, I believe the boys have a lot to be proud of! It also gives us a goal for next year. By the way, the winning team had just over 550 inches.
On behalf of myself, Charlie Schneider, the boys and would like to sincerely thank their parents for allowing them to participate and for being there helping out. On championship day every angler had a parent on the ice. That sure made my job easier! But the biggest thanks goes out to Stan Tischer. Stan fished most of the week before the tournament so that when we were able to prefish he already had lakes crossed off the list and lakes that we needed to try. Stan does this for nothing but thanks! I am eternally grateful to Stan for his help. We wouldn’t have gotten where we did without him.
My favorite event of the season was numerous times watching one of the older boys helping out a younger fisherman. To me that’s what this is all about. Ok, the ice is gone! Let’s get the boats out and see how we can do there.

01/21/2024

Menomonie High School Fishing Team update for 1/21/2024. Yesterday we had our second tournament, this time we were up in Chetek. We had the advantage of a good friend, Stan, scouting for us during the week and finding the fish. Four anglers this week were willing to brave the cold and fish for the day hitting the ice before 7 am and leaving around 8 pm.
Again they did an awesome job and finished well. For this tournament, teams could fish one day this weekend or next on one of many prescribed lakes. Not wanting to travel too far this left us with the Chetek Chain or the Red Cedar Chain. Since we had the Stan advantage we choose the Chetek Chain and it didn’t disappoint. Of course, we had the disadvantage again this week of having a small team which means fewer lines in the water. For example, if a team had 12 anglers by law in Wisconsin they could put in 36 lines (3 per angler). Whereas our team having only four anglers we had 12 lines in the water. The goal was to catch 25 fish to register. So we had 1/3 of the lines in the water of the other teams but were attempting to catch the same number of fish. But they got it done! As of this moment, here is where we stand-
4th place for Mixed Bag
5th place Northern
4th place Bass Walleye
6th place Crappie
1st place Bluegill or Perch

It is likely that we will slip in the standings as other teams are fishing today and more will fish next weekend as well.
For much of the day, we had the largest northern at 30”, but unfortunately that was eclipsed by another team late in the day. One item of note that I am excited about, each of our anglers scored more than two fish.
This week Tyler Nelson, Nathan Krushke, Charlie Mikesell, and Nolan Stafne fished while Eric Zydowsky and Ethan Nelson fished last week but had prior commitments this week. Thanks also to Brian Mikesell, Ryan Stafne, and John Nelson, without these dads it would be impossible to get this done. Some people wanted to know who is the advisor for this group. Well, that would be me, Charlie Schneider. I’ve lived in Menomonie since 1988, my wife and I raised our two adult daughters here. Both my wife and I served some time on the school board over the years and I also assisted with the softball and football programs in a support role over the years. I enjoy the outdoors and am fishing or hunting whenever I can.
My goal for this club is simple, to get kids fishing. We are starting small but hopefully, we can grow to include more anglers over time. If you want to know more about the statewide student fish organization search student fishing wifa on the internet. If you know of someone who has an interest in the club please have them contact me.
Upcoming for the club will be the possibility of another tournament the first two weeks of February as well as preparing for the state tournament on February 16-17 in Onalaska.
The end of another great week!

Photo below is Nolan with his 30" Northern caught on a jigging pole.

01/14/2024

Yesterday the Menomonie High School Fishing team completed our first tournament on ice. We only had four different anglers at the most with three or fewer anglers most of the day due to other activities that the students were committed to. But in the end, the team did well. The goal of the tournament was to register 10 bluegills and 10 northern/ walleyes totaling 250 inches. In the bluegill division the team registered 10 fish totaling 82.75 inches putting us in a tie with Shell Lake/ Spooner for 2nd place and behind Osceola by just .5 inches. In the Walleye/ Nothern division, we only put two on the ice for 41.25 inches. So we fell short of the 250 inch goal. But still a great start for our team.

Most of the other teams had more than 10 anglers which gave them a huge advantage as they had many more lines in the water. So with our small team we had to make up for it in persistence. As our anglers came and went for their other commitments I was on the ice for 17 hours. Even though it was cold it was a great day! Great kids and very helpful parents!

A great start for our team. This tournament qualifies us for the state tournament in February as well.

If you want to know more about High School Fishing in Wisconsin search the internet for student fishing WIFA. If you know of a student that would like to get involved please get in touch with me. All students in High School or Middle School are welcome!

Menomonie High School fishing Team

02/02/2025

12/31/2024

06/21/2024

06/21/2024

03/04/2024

01/21/2024

01/14/2024

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category