A new club was started this year and has members ‘hooked’! Fishing club has finally come to LZHS and has already accumulated over 65 members after just two meetings.

 From those who have no experience in fishing to those who are at the expert level, this club is open to everyone and anyone according to juniors Dean Stornello, Brian Gertie, Justin Kutsor, Sebastian Pighini, creators of the club.

Stornello, who has been fishing for a good portion of his life, said “my friends and I really like to go out and just catch fish and have a good time. We thought ‘oh this could be a good club idea.’ We heard that some people have tried to start one before and we were the ones who wanted to make it successful.”

Stornello approached Kelly Henkel, political science teacher, to make his idea into reality. Matt Wilhelm, biology teacher, as well as an out of school soccer coach,  sponsor the club.

Although there have only been two meetings, Stornello and the other leaders already have ideas and events they would like the club to participate in. 

“Right now we are planning on having a carp harvest tournament at Lake Zurich so basically we go out, fish carp out of the lake. The top three who catch the largest fish, receive cash prizes and everyone gets free T-shirts,” said Stornello. 

The past meetings were mostly informational and put in place to provide members with access to Canvas. They were also used the gather birthdays because students over 16 must have a fishing license. Now, the discussion is slowly transitioning to events outside of school, such as the carp harvest tournament.

“We haven’t set a date for it yet, but members will show up to Palus Park and we’re going to be harvesting carp out of the lake as part of an annual event the lake already does,” Henkel said. “They’re actually sponsoring us and providing us an opportunity to compete for who gets the most inches in carp.”

Besides the carp harvest tournament, Henkel also said he is trying to set up tournaments with other surrounding schools.

“I’ve actually communicated with other high schools about potentially doing a head-to-head tournament somewhere on a Saturday or Sunday,” Henkel said. “There is actually an IHSA bass fishing [school] sport so the boys actually want to get to that point so now we’re kind of starting slow and strong to work to that point to make it sustainable.”

Aside from fishing and hanging with friends, Stornello also says there’s an environmental aspect to the club. Stornello said “every once in a while we try to preserve fishing spots in the wilderness around it so there are cleaner places to fish and overall making the world a better place.” 

As fishing experience not being a requirement, Stornello says this will be a good club for anyone who wants to join. “If you want to join a fun club and you want to get some friends to join with you this is the perfect club to do it because there are no real requirements. You can show up, have fun, maybe win a couple prizes, and make some memories,” Stornello said.