IHSA BASS FISHING: Panthers in First IHSA Final
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ The 2009 IHSA Bass Fishing State Finals mark the inaugural season of bass fishing competition in the state of Illinois, as well as in the nation at the high school level.
The action will unfold on Carlyle Lake in Carlyle on Friday and Saturday.
The IHSA became the first high school association in the country to sanction bass fishing at a Board of Directors meeting in June, 2008.
The state finals will feature 53 teams competing for the state title.
Each team will have a single boat, with an adult driver and two students fishing at a time.
Some teams have three individuals who qualified to compete in the state finals.
Only two individuals can be in the boat at a time, leaving the third angler to wait on land.
A team with three individuals has no limit on the number of times they can substitute their students on the boat. A team can return to land with a maximum of five fish to be weighed.
The team with the largest combined weight from their Friday and Saturday fish weight totals will be declared the state champion.
Team ties will be broken by the largest individual fish caught and then by the total number of fish caught.
Weight penalties will be assessed if participants are late returning to land or if fish do not survive.
Pinckneyville's top boat consisting of Ty Heape and Jake Bathon recorded 10.53 lbs. in catches as the Panthers won the Coffeen Lake Sectional April 24.
48 schools will be represented among the 53 boats, as five schools (Highland, Macon (Meridian), Rochelle, Teutopolis, Zion-Benton) all qualified two boats per school to compete in the state finals.
Carrier Mills (C.M.-Stonefort) produced the state's best Sectional total, catching five fish on Lake Egypt with a combined weight of 14.40 pounds. Coal City #1 (LaSalle Lake, 14.19 pounds) and Zion-Benton #1 (Chain O' Lakes #2, 14.04) were the only two other schools to break 14 pounds.
Sixteen qualifiers managed double-digit pound totals at Sectionals.
The great equalizer in determining the state champion will be Carlyle Lake, the largest man-made and largest inland lake in the state of Illinois.
Carlyle Lake, which was completed in 1966 and remains operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, spans more than 26,000 acres of water and has over 11,000 acres of land surrounding it.
The lake averages 3,260 pounds of fish per water-acre, making it one of the most productive fishing areas in the state. Carlyle Lake is 3.4 to 4 miles wide and about 15 miles long, while its maximum depth reaches 35 feet with an average depth of 11 feet.
The winning team and largest fish caught this weekend are guaranteed to be state records, but they will also be national records.
The NFHS has confirmed that it does track records in activities/sports that it does not currently sanction, like bass fishing, and that there are currently no bass fishing records on file.