The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Angling for a title
Corcoran, DeCarlo helped make Cromwell a championship program
CROMWELL — Ryan Corcoran’s happy place is a pond, lake or the Connecticut River, so long as he’s on his boat, trying to figure out where the fish are running.
The Cromwell High senior learned to fish before he was of grammar school age. He was taught by his grandfather, and to this day Corcoran still discovers new techniques each time they put his boat, an 18footer with 115 horsepower, in the water.
“He’s still my favorite person to fish with,” he said. “I still learn things every time I go out with him.”
Somewhere along the line, the sport took a serious turn for
Corcoran. He got his boating license long before his driver’s license. He was driven to be on a team and compete against other anglers. In eighthgrade language arts, he wrote a paper, “How To Start A Bass Fishing Club In High School,” read it to his class, and was then chosen to present it to all Cromwell Middle School eighthgraders.
“In looking back at how meticulous it was, it was a stepbystep process of how to put together the program,” said Brian Calhoun, his LA teacher. “There were so many details in it. Everything was laid out perfectly. In eighth grade, to know what he wanted to do, that he wanted success and went after it, is aw
fully impressive.”
It turned out so well for Corcoran that, not only did he establish the club at Cromwell High three years ago, he and his angling partner, junior Mason DeCarlo of Rocky Hill, won the 2019 state championship, besting 27 other teams in the yearend high school point standings after topfive finishes the previous two years. Corcoran and DeCarlo were honored in November at the Connecticut B.A.S.S. Nation annual banquet in Hartford.
“To get recognized was kind of nice,” Corcoran said. “It wasn’t just all high school kids that were there. Every single team plus the men’s clubs attended. A lot of years have gone into this. Finally this year, it all came together.”
This summer, representing Connecticut, the two will compete in the national tournament (southern locale to be determined), where tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships are awarded.
“He saw the process all
the way through, and to have him finish as a champion, if he didn’t take the initiative or have the drive to do it, he would never be where he is right now (national level),” Cromwell athletic director Kelly Maher said. “It’s a credit to him to have pursued his goal.”
Corcoran and DeCarlo knew of each other through social media. They got together at one of Corcoran’s favorite spots in town (he keeps the exact place close to the vest) in 2017. Corcoran wanted to start a team as a Cromwell freshman, but couldn’t find a partner. DeCarlo was his guy.
They charted the course together, every step of the way.
“We work really well together,” DeCarlo said. “We fish opposite, almost. He’s always doing something fast. I am slow and particular. You put them together and it’s like putting pieces of a puzzle together. When we work together, it makes sense. We have the same mentality.”
Corcoran’s eighthgrade paper was a precursor to the process of formalizing things with Bassmaster
High School Nation. Maher oversaw the paperwork and lent moral support, while costs came directly from the anglers. They fished almost every weekend, studied Bassmaster’s rules and regulations, purchased the proper equipment and designated a boat captain (Mason’s father, Mike).
Corcoran and DeCarlo also took a deep dive into learning the four tournament sites — Candlewood Lake in the Danbury area, Lake Lillinonah in Bridgewater, Lake Zoar in Southbury and the Connecticut River in East Haddam.
By the spring of 2018, he and DeCarlo were competing for real.
“The reason why I first reached out to Ryan is because guys that are doing this are doing it as hard as they can,” DeCarlo said. “They are out there to win and putting the time in. At Rocky Hill, definitely no one does this to the extent that we do it. If you’re going to be good at anything, you have to invest a bunch into it. It’s what I look forward to the most.”
For Corcoran, his appreciation for angling is simpler.
“I really like being outside and fishing is an easier way to get outside,” he said. “It’s relaxing, too. There is no stress at all, at least when I’m by myself. In a tournament, it gets a little stressful. By myself, there’s nothing I’d rather do than fish.”
The scoring system for the overall standings is a combination of points scored from tournament catches and fulfilling community service opportunities, such as volunteering to set up or teaching kids how to fish, at B.A.S.S. Nation adult tournaments.
Corcoran and DeCarlo fished in this year’s four tournaments, which run seven hours and are spread between May and September. Twoperson teams are allowed five bass, smallmouth or largemouth, at a 12inch minimum in a day’s haul.
Corcoran and DeCarlo had the winning haul in one of this year’s four tournaments, which counted 100 points toward their season total. Once Bassmaster finalized team points in October, Corcoran and DeCarlo had a total of 389, two more than the runnerup from The Sound
School, a marine sciences and trades school in New Haven. Colby Kish and Bryan Leslie of HaddamKillingworth finished fifth.
DeCarlo said the experience was as rewarding for his father, whose sole responsibility under the rules is to operate the boat in competition.
“He sits there for eight hours and takes it all in and he’s not casting anything,” his son said. “He loves fishing. He watched us grow as a team, from having us do poorly in a few tournaments to finishing first. He was really proud to say he watched us through it all and helped as much as he could. Outside of tournaments, fishing together, he’s always supported the two of us and is definitely proud of what we’ve done.”
DeCarlo and Corcoran will partner up again this spring, and Corcoran has bigger fishing plans beyond Cromwell High. He has been accepted to the University of Auburn, where he intends to study engineering and compete for the Tigers’ club team in the Southeastern Conference.
“I kind of knew this was what I wanted to do,” he
said. “If I can fish full time when I get older, that’s my main goal. I want to be a professional bass fisherman. That’s what I want to do, although my mom wants a Plan B.”
After revisiting Corcoran’s writing, his language arts teacher marveled at his former student’s maturity and the inspiration it could provide others with similar goals and hopes.
“Many eighth graders have some childhood dreams that they want to chase, but some of the kids are not aware of the resources available to them, let alone go after something that doesn’t exist that they want to create,” Calhoun said. “The most impressive part to me is this was something he clearly wanted to do and he wrote it out.
“What was different in his speech from others is that students have the idea — pay gap, equality or inequality, different rights for different groups of people — but a lot of them didn’t write about the path to get there. The difference with Ryan’s was HOW to do it. It was great for Ryan to create his own club. He blazed a trail.”