Fairfield teen qualifies for national bass fishing contest

FAIRFIELD – Ben Sirdoreus caught his first fish at the tender age of 2 and has been 'hooked” ever since.

Sirdoreus is now a freshman at Fairfield High School and is earning a reputation as one of the best anglers around.

This year, Sirdoreus won a state competition in bass fishing, pulling a 6.31-pound bass from Lake Darling near Brighton. That has earned him a trip to the Bill Siemantel's Big Bass Zone Junior Championship, a national fishing competition in Sandpoint on the northern tip of Idaho.

Sirdoreus will fly to the competition, which is Oct. 3. He said it will be his first time visiting Idaho and his first time on a plane.

The grand prize of the national competition is a $35,000 bass fishing boat. Sirdoreus joked with his family that they shouldn't fly to Idaho. Instead, they should drive there, so they can pull the boat home after Ben wins it.

Though Sirdoreus's never been to Idaho, he does have a distant family connection to the state, and even to the very spot where he will fish in October. His great-great-great grandfather died in a logging accident near Lake Pend Oreille in 1909.

Sirdoreus said the lake 'owes me something,” and is confident the spirit of his ancestors will help guide him to victory.

The state and national bass fishing competitions are organized differently. For the state competition, Sirdoreus fished on his own, and then submitted proof of his catch with measurements of the fish's length, width and girth. Based on that, the organizers calculated the fish's weight, and Sirdoreus was declared the winner.

For the national competition, which will be held on Lake Pend Oreille (the largest lake in Idaho), Sirdoreus will be on a boat with another competitor. The two spend the day fishing, and they take turns deciding where the boat goes, with one competitor steering it in the morning, and the other angler steering it in the afternoon.

'I love fishing, and this is an amazing opportunity for me to compete at the national level for the first time,” Sirdoreus said. 'Plus, there's so much more to the Big Bass Zone tournament. I'm also getting sponsors and learning business relationships.”

Sirdoreus said he'll do everything he can to make Iowa, his sponsors and his parents proud. All competitors are also fishing for a cause, and Sirdoreus's cause is dyslexia awareness. He was diagnosed with dyslexia in second grade. He said people commonly think dyslexia means seeing numbers and letters backward, when in fact dyslexia is a difference in the wiring of the brain that affects how he processes information.

His dyslexia means he needs to take his time reading and writing, and it's hard to remember multi-step instructions.

Sirdoreus said dyslexia is like 'taking the dirt road when everyone else is taking the highway.” Everybody arrives at the same place, but it takes him a little longer.

Sirdoreus wants kids with learning differences like him to know there are lots of things they can be good at beside school, to find those things and figure out how to excel at them.

Sirdoreus has found his passion, and fishes as often as he can.

He frequently fishes with his father, Jim, and grandfather, Jerry. Their friends have always been impressed with Ben as a fisherman since he so often hauls in a larger catch than they do. He studies maps of lakes before they go on a trip, so that when they arrive on the water, he already knows where to go.

Sirdoreus also likes to fish with his buddies from school. If they can't find a ride out of town, they hop on their bikes with their poles and tackle boxes in tow and ride to Waterworks Park or Jefferson County Park.

Sirdoreus recently switched to doing fully online learning at Fairfield High School, because he realized he could complete his coursework faster that way, leaving more time to fish.

'I'd rather fish than do anything else,” Sirdoreus said.