Big Fish on Campus

Unlike most college sports, angling can pay off

Hollis Bennett for TIME

Jordan Lee, who fishes for Auburn, holds a 5-lb. largemouth bass he caught at the FLW College Fishing National Championship.

It's day two of the FLW college fishing championships, and Paul Clark, an angler for the University of Louisiana at Monroe, knows he just hooked a "donkey"--a really big fish. As weigh-ins begin in the Walmart parking lot in Rogers, Ark., each of the 25 teams takes the stage, one by one, in front of a few hundred fishing fanatics. The top five teams, as measured by total weight of fish caught over a two-day period, will advance to the finals the next morning. (Plea to FLW Outdoors, the pro-fishing-tour operator that also runs a college circuit: take one fewer team...

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