PENDLETON — Dalton Mollenkopf had always wanted to be a professional fisherman. He just didn’t know — until recent years — he could be a collegiate fisherman, too.
Sure, he could go fishing, but he has the opportunity to fish and compete. He’ll begin doing that this fall in Michigan on the Adrian College bass fishing team.
“My freshman year of high school I would watch YouTube videos, and I learned a lot,” Mollenkopf said. “I would watch pros talking all over the United States; then I came across a page that showed a college tournament.
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“I had always planned on going to college for baseball; then I started really talking with coach (Seth Borton) at Adrian. Up until then I was focused on going for baseball.”
At Pendleton Heights High School, Mollenkopf started a fishing club, Pendleton Bass Fanatics, but he was also a major part of the school’s baseball team. He was scheduled to be the team’s starting shortstop before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Indiana High School Athletic Association to cancel the spring sports season.
Mollenkopf had been a starter at third base most of his junior year and was on the team’s sectional roster as a sophomore.
“He bought into the system and was an instrumental guy in our program,” Pendleton Heights baseball coach Matt Vosburgh said. “I expected him to have a big year at shortstop.”
He played a number of sports growing up, but his two biggest loves were baseball and fishing.
Mollenkopf said there was an opportunity to possibly play college baseball at Manchester, but it came down to baseball or fishing and fishing won out.
“When I was 14 years old, I went to my first (fishing) tournament and I have been addicted to it,” he said.
“It’s still hard knowing that I won’t be stepping out on a baseball field again,” Mollenkopf added. “Baseball and fishing are my favorite things to do.”
Vosburgh said a lot of his players enjoy fishing, but he could tell his standout middle infielder was more than just a leisurely fisherman.
“I saw his YouTube channel, and within minutes he’s pulling in fish,” Vosburgh said. “When I go fishing it takes hours. He has definitely got a knack for it.”
With the pandemic, Mollenkopf didn’t get a chance to have a senior season with the Arabians baseball team, though he did get a recent opportunity to play in a summer league game before retiring his baseball cleats for fishing shoes.
The equipment is different, but Mollenkopf said there are similarities in his two faves.
“You have to keep your head in it and not get down on yourself,” he said. “If you make an error (in baseball) or not have a good game, you can’t get down on yourself. You have to stay focused. In fishing, if you have a bad tournament, you have to be able to rebound on the next one.”
Mollenkopf has won a pair of tournaments at Geist Reservoir as well as owning first-place finishes at White River, Waldron Lake and Morse Reservoir, to name a few.
While he loves both sports, he’s put his emphasis on fishing as he’s become part of the Adrian College team, considered one of the best in the nation.
Bass fishing is not an NCAA-authorized sport. It is a collegiate club sport. Though Adrian is an NCAA Division III institution, in fishing the Adrian Bulldogs compete against schools of all levels.
Adrian finished third in the Collegiate Bass Fishing School of the Year standings, behind No. 1 McKendree University and No. 2 University of Montevallo, both NCAA D-II schools. Adrian finished ahead of Division I schools Murray State and Auburn, which finished No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. Clemson, Alabama and Tennessee are other schools better known for big-time college sports among the top 20, which also included less familiar names such as Blue Mountain College, Bryan College, Drury and Arkansas Tech.
Adrian was ranked No. 1 by Fishing League Worldwide, which rates schools by results only in FLW-sanctioned events.
Borton is in his seventh season as Adrian coach. He said his team has been among the top five in the country each of the past five years.
A college basketball player at Siena Heights University, Borton has noticed through the years many of his best fishermen are those who excelled in other sports in high school.
Mollenkopf fits that mold.
“The guys that are good in other sports during their athletic career, they know what it takes to be better,” Borton said. “Dalton falls under that umbrella. He has the focus, grit and determination. What he’s been applying to baseball is also what he’s applying to bass fishing.”
Borton said his roster includes former baseball and basketball players and some wrestlers.
The sport is more than putting a worm on a hook and hoping for the best.
Borton said tournaments are “an absolute grind.”
Teams get to events two or three days ahead of time to practice, finding the best spots and learning what the best methods are to catch bass. It’s followed by either two or three eight-hour days of actual tournament competition, where teams and individuals are judged by weights of their five best fish.
Borton has 20 to 30 students on his roster and looks mostly at results from surrounding states’ tournaments to recruit his team.
“Indiana really does a good job of developing high school anglers,” he said. “Geist (Reservoir) is a ‘sleeper’ recruiting area.”
Mollenkopf falls under that category, too.
The recent Pendleton Heights graduate said some of the current top pros have gone through the collegiate system, so he’s hoping there’s another group he can fall into down the road.
“Growing up, I wanted to be a professional fisherman, but I also wanted to play other sports,” he said. “As I grew up I saw better opportunities doing fishing than baseball.”
