Angling

At age 18, having just graduated high school and with an eye on medical school, Lilli Holt finds that fly fishing is an important component in achieving her life goals.

“Fly fishing has changed my life in helping me know how to overcome problems,” said the Wyoming native. “It’s improved my mental focus. It’s a relaxing thing that helps me focus, learn new skills. Learning fly fishing was difficult and challenging, and sometimes it would get frustrating, but it taught me help over coming challenges in life, to relax and when overcoming the big things.”

Let this sink in for a moment: Colt Duffie caught his first white marlin at five years old.

Now the sixth grader says “I’ve been fishing my whole life. I feel that fishing is my thing. A lot of people my age like other sports like soccer and football, but I’m happy when I’m fishing.”

If anyone on the planet is born to be a fisherman, it’s Colt. Born and raised in Ocean City, Maryland, Colt’s father Jon owns Duffie Boat Works, which builds sport-fishing boats ranging in length from 50 to 80 feet. And before becoming a boat builder, Jon worked as a charter fishing captain. Jon, like his son, has been involved in fishing all his life.

If there was ever a natural-born noodler, it has to be 15-year-old River Williams. He is obsessed with noodling. You can say the same thing for the entire Williams family. They run Adrenaline Rush Noodling in Shawnee, Oklahoma. ARN is a catfish noodling guide service that has been on the Today Show, Mudcats TV and the Sportsman Channel. Even Jeremy Wade of the TV show River Monsters has paid them a visit. It seems the Williams family are considered the world over as the catfish noodling experts.

You’re never too young to know your calling and start setting goals for yourself, and Max Plemmons is proof of that. His dad and grandpa started teaching him about hunting and fishing at a very young age and he shot his first deer at six years old. Max continues to enjoy hunting recreationally, but Jeremy and Amanda Plemmons learned quickly that fishing was their son’s biggest passion – and they knew it was going to have a major impact on his life. 

Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky is known for its basketball and football teams, so when the school started a fishing club in 2018 no one could have anticipated the impact it would have on the lives of students.

“The main reason we started a fishing club was to give more students an opportunity to participate in something here at school,” said Robb Schneeman, Head Bass Fishing Coach at Covington Catholic.

In just eight years the extracurricular club evolved into a Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) sanctioned Varsity fishing team now producing members like Sam Scroggins who will be heading off to college on a fishing scholarship.

Who would have thought that one gift could help set the course for the rest of your life – especially if you aren’t even the recipient of that gift? That is what happened to JT Lamberth when he, his mom, and sister gifted his dad a Pelican 103 Jon boat for Father’s Day when he was only five years old. It started as some leisurely father-and-son quality time, then quickly progressed into something more. His uncle and grandfather saw that fire in JT at a young age, and then upgraded them to a boat that was a little more suitable for a budding angler. 

The Bassmaster Classic is the super bowl of fishing tournaments and a lifetime dream for any competitive angler. So when Easton Fothergill, a senior business marketing major at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama landed the 2024 collegiate invite to compete against the most famous names in the fishing industry he was speechless.

“It’s a dream come true for sure, and it still doesn’t feel real. I’ll see all my idols on the water, and just being able to go out and practice with them is when it’s really going to hit me,” said Fothergill.