Crimson Anglers Invited To Annual Fishing Match

Yale has challenged the Crimson to a fishing match.

Edward C. Migdalski, Yale Fishing Coach, has announced that Yale intends to sponsor the third annual Intercollegiate Game Fish Seminar and Fishing Match at Wedgeport, Nova Scotia in late August or early September of 1958.

The five fishermen from Cambridge who can garner a coach or faculty adviser will find themselves fishing for free on the high seas off the coast of Nova Scotia if they can finance their transportation and lodgings.

The event will be sponsored by the Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory of Yale University with the cooperation of the Nova Scotia government. Yale has invited Harvard, Princeton and three Canadian schools to participate. The five members of each team and their faculty adviser need not have had any previous big game fishing experience.

Will Provide Instruction

The purpose of the Seminar is to introduce the participating students to the sport of giant tuna fishing and to provide them with expert instruction in fishing techniques. The program will consist of evening lectures on the identification, distribution, and economics of big game fish such as tuna, black marlin, and striped marlin. During the day techniques will be demonstrated in the course of actual fishing.

The Seminar will bear most of the cost of boats, tackle, guides, and lecturers. Participants only pay for their transportation to Nova Scotia and their board and room there.

The first Seminar was held at Wedgeport in early August of 1956. At that time Yale invited St. Francis Xavier University of Antigonish, Nova Scotia to participate. Not a single student attending had previous big game fishing experience. The contestants came from different parts of the United States and Canada, and included one student from Pakistan.

Wedgeport is in an area of the Navo Scotia fishing banks that has attracted fishermen fom distant places since the sixteenth century.

First Big Game Match

The big game fishing match between Yale and St. Francis was the first intercollegiate event of its kind to take place. The first intercollegiate fishing match of any kind was held at Amherst in May, 1949. Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Norwich and the University of Massachusetts spent two days in light tackle fishing competition. This event has been reorganized and now takes place every year at the University of Massachusetts.

Yale's Game Fish and Tuna Match, Yale points out, is much more than a fishing match. Although part of the success of the original 1956 match was the capturing of a 630 pound tuna by Al Wood-Prince, captain of Yale's team, the sponsors "were also gratified" by the number of local fishermen who joined the overflow audiences.

Crimson fishermen have apparently been neglecting their sport. Anyone interested in upholding school honor should write Edward C. Migdalski, Yale fishing coach.