Every high school sport requires some amount of preparation and practice in order to be at their best when it comes time to compete. And that is no different for fishing teams. Shelly Pond is the head coach of the Weatherford High School fishing team and her team knows what it takes to be prepared.
“Our teams usually go to pre-fish the day before the tournament,” she said. “They also spend a lot of time getting gear ready. It takes a lot of preparation from the parents and grandparents and boat captains to get our teams to these tournaments due to our location.”
Pond is in her sixth year leading the program and she says that she could not do it alone. She has had a lot of help from her husband, Doug, as well as the parents and grandparents of the team members.
The team is broken down into five individual teams, all of whom are ranked in the top 30. Gunner Smith and Hannah Wilhite are ranked twelfth, Drake Davison and Riley Payne are ranked fifteenth, Cooper Moses and Ty Short are ranked eighteenth, Grayson Grant and Holland Burton are twenty-fifth, and Chandler Jackson and Sammy Kuykendall are sitting at twenty-ninth.
Pond says that this has been a really great season for the team and they have worked hard to get where they are.
“This has been one of the best years for our team collectively,” the coach said. “Having all five of our teams qualify for state is pretty incredible. We are at a huge disadvantage being on the far west side of the state, and most of our tournaments are in Eastern Oklahoma. So, we don’t get to fish on the tournament lakes as much as other teams. Also, most of our kids are very active in other sports, so their time for practice is limited.”
