VIDALIA — A handful of Miss-Lou schools will face off Saturday, Oct. 30, in a competition where only one school comes out on top.

But this tournament will not feature balls being shot into baskets, or bats swinging for the fences. Instead, lines will be cast and fish will be weighed in a fishing tournament sponsored by La. Pigstickers Bass Club in Vidalia.

“We just came up with the plan last week,” club member John Bruce said.

“It’s been tossed around for a while, but we finally brought it up in the meeting. (Club member) Matt Smith proposed doing something with kids, and I proposed doing it with local seniors.”

Seniors at area schools will be asked to submit an essay detailing why they should get an opportunity to compete in a bass fishing tournament. A committee run by the La. Pigstickers will select the top three essays from each school.

Those students will join an angler from the club on the Black River Lake Complex in Monterey the day of the tournament. Participating schools include Monterey High School, Tensas Academy, Ferriday High School, Vidalia High School, Trinity Episcopal, Adams County Christian, Cathedral School and Natchez High School.

“The essays will be voluntary. Our club wants to share the sport we love with younger people, because they’re the future of the sport,” Bruce said.

Parents of guardians of the contestants will have to sign a consent form, but the club will pay for all expenses, Bruce said.

Each club member will put down $20 per student in a prize pot. With 24 student contestants, the total prize money is $480, which will be divided to the top three students that had the best weigh-ins.

The first place student will receive $240, the second place student $144 and the third place student $96.

“That’s for the individual competition. The kids will weigh in their best three. For the school competition, each kid will weight their best three, and the angler will weigh his best two,” Bruce said.

David Cooper, vice president of the club, said the anglers’ fish being weighed in the school competition will make sure that the anglers aren’t lollygagging and letting the students do all the work.

“We want whoever we’re fishing with to win the school competition, so that will drive us to fish well,” Cooper said.

“We also want to teach them tricks to our sport, like how to cast and not cast. If possible, we’d like to make this an annual event, but it will depend on how much interest we see in the schools this year.”

Bruce said, in addition to rewarding seniors, he also wants to introduce people to competitive fishing.

“A lot of people have fished, but haven’t fished competitively. It’s a lot different,” he said.

A willingness to compete is one of the things Bruce said the selection panel would be looking for in the essays.

“We want kids that have the desire to win. They can say, ‘I might not have any experience, but I want to win,’ and we’d like that,” Bruce said.

“We want to grow the sport within the youth. You see a lot of guys our age doing it, but not many young ones, and that’s not a good sign.”

Essays must be submitted by Oct. 15. For more information, call Bruce at 318-719-5804, Cooper at 318-719-2440 or Smith at 601-870-2753.