Almost every weekend and about once a week as well, Levi Mullins and his father, Jeff, are out on the water.
Their dedication has paid off in the form of a college scholarship for Levi, who graduated last month from Brown County High School. He’s been invited to join the bass fishing team at Bethel University in Tennessee.
Last year, Bethel became the first school to win the BoatUs Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship and Cabela’s School of the Year award in the same year.
Levi wasn’t even sure he was going to go to college, but this opportunity sealed the deal. The scholarship is not a full ride, but it will pay for a little over a year, and the school gave him some additional money to come study there, his father said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“I was pretty excited, just getting to go to college and be on the fishing team,” Levi said last week.
Levi has been bass fishing competitively for three years, but has fished for fun with his dad his entire life.
“He’s a very determined young man. He’s kind of quiet and shy, but he sets a goal and goes after it,” Jeff said of his son.
Levi also wrestled all four years of high school. Jeff said his son wasn’t the best at either sport in the beginning, but he never gave up. “He’s kind of done the same thing with the fishing world,” Jeff said.
“He started doing it maybe about maybe three years ago, was maybe a little better than horrible. It seemed like last year, everything started clicking, and we ended up ninth in USA Bass (Bass Angler Sportsman Society) in national points. We’re currently fifth this year, so it’s really coming a long way. … It has been a short but extremely fast ride.”
Levi won the scholarship to Bethel through USA BASSIN, a national tournament fishing trail, along with his work with the Brown County Bass Fishing Club, Jeff said. Jeff is the club’s coach. He and Levi restarted the club about two years ago after a smaller club had stopped meeting several years ago.
The Brown County Bass Fishing Club travels around to compete in tournaments through the national Bass Angler Sportsman Society (BASS) in the Indiana High School Bass Nation division.
Brown County also fielded one junior team, made up of two Brown County Junior High students, who will compete in a national competition in August against the top teams from each state.
Jeff said Levi was “on the fence” about going to college, but he did have dreams of being a professional fisherman. “The college level has become where a lot of the professionals are coming from now, so I was kind of pushing him to try to get into a college that supported the bass teams,” Jeff said.
One of those colleges was Bethel, home of one of the most decorated fishing teams in the nation.
Since USA BASSIN offered scholarships, Jeff and Levi tried to fish in many USA BASSIN tournaments to stay up in the point system to make Levi eligible for the scholarship.
It worked.
“Then we got the phone call about a month ago, and then two weeks ago we were down there and he was signing the paper. It was a pretty fast ordeal once we found that he got it,” Jeff said last week.
In a bass fishing tournament, competitors turn in their five or so biggest bass for weigh-in, and whoever has the highest weight wins. Some competitions will require fish to be a certain length, too, Levi said.
The biggest fish he caught in a tournament was 7.77 pounds, out of {span}Lake Monroe in March 2017 during a USA BASSIN tournament.
Jeff said Levi has always been a fan of the outdoors. But Jeff had never competitively fished before he and Levi started doing it together. “That was one of the proudest things for me. A lot of the kids we competed against had dads with years of experience. I’m thinking he’s at a disadvantage with me, because I was learning with him, but we still done really well. Most of it was on him more than me.”
Levi’s little brother, Lane, also competes in the junior division. He will switch to the high school division when he becomes a freshman this fall. “The coach at Bethel asked me what I was going to do since he was taking my fisher partner from me. I told him he had a younger brother. He kind of chuckled and said, ‘Maybe we can do a signing again in about four more years,’” Jeff said.
Jeff said he admires his son and his determination. “It’s kind of inspirational to be around him in that kind of stuff, because when things go bad, he doesn’t want to throw in the towel real quick.”
Levi said fishing keeps him busy and out of trouble. “It’s just fun to do,” he said.
“The tournaments can be a little stressful. Just having mechanical problems and stuff. Just having a bad day, like have a couple of fish come off. If nothing goes right, it’s kind of stressful. … (But) just put it behind you and keep on going.”
He likes that it allows him to spend time with his dad, too. “It feels good that he’s just there, and he’s trying to help me be as successful as I can be as a fisherman,” he said.
