2026-09-09 · Leech Lake / Walker (Cass County) + Duluth East
From the Couch to Leech — High School Bass Takes Over Walker
Some Minnesota fishing stories start with a walleye whisper. This one starts with a kid who used to live on a couch controller — and somehow ends up on Leech Lake with the state’s best high school bass boats.
Some Minnesota fishing stories start with a walleye whisper. This one starts with a kid who used to live on a couch controller — and somehow ends up on Leech Lake with the state’s best high school bass boats.
This past weekend, the seventh annual High School State Bass Tournament took over Leech Lake in Walker. About 350 boats competed across three summer events; only 80 made the final cut. In that pack: a Duluth East duo in their first tournament season. (Northern News Now / KBJR)
Ian Ramsay used to be a big video gamer — “sit inside and just sit on my butt,” in his words. Now he and teammate Keltan Hanna spend summers sharpening up on Island Lake, and they punched one of those coveted state spots. “This is our first year of doing tournaments, so it’s pretty nice to make it this far,” Ramsay said. “I never thought that I’d be able to compete.” (Northern News Now)
Their coach, Tyler Kocon — team captain and head coach — grew up fishing but never got the high school tournament lane himself. Watching the kids get it now is the good part: “They’ve seen these big tournaments, they wanted to be a part of it, and now they can on the high school level… at the kid level, the past five years it’s really gained traction.” Success, he says, isn’t only first place — cracking the top 30 of those 80 boats is already a win day. (Northern News Now)
It’s not an official Minnesota State High School League sport (yet), but the pipeline is real: more than 600 colleges offer bass fishing, including University of Minnesota, Winona State, and University of St. Thomas, and kids use weekends like that to get on recruiters’ radar. Duluth East wasn’t alone up north — Grand Rapids, Esko, and Aitkin teams were in the mix too. (Northern News Now)
Campfire takeaway: the loudest Minnesota fishing story last week wasn’t a lake report. It’s a kid trading screen time for Island Lake practice, a coach who never got the high school dock, and a whole generation finding out Leech Lake will still take a first-timer seriously.