SYC Minnows give new meaning to 'go fish'

It’s 10 in the morning on a Sunday, and instead of sitting inside watching cartoons on TV, the Sarasota Yacht Club Minnows hit the docks. The new club met for the first time Jan. 13, but will meet on a monthly basis because the kids are hooked.

Yacht Club employees Amanda Holm and Camille Bienvenue led the children’s fishing group. They fished off of the dock, using live shrimp as bait and releasing their catches shortly after.

Holm has been fishing plenty of times but wouldn’t call herself an expert. Bienvenue is the club’s chef — he doesn’t only prepare the catch of the day, he catches it, too. And he’s not new at helping kids fish; he has a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old that he takes fishing all the time.

The Sarasota Yacht Club Minnows are a group just as diverse as the fish they caught: mangrove snapper, flounder, sheep head, sea trout, ladyfish and pinfish.

Five-year-old Claire Schmalzer was the first to arrive. She hadn’t been fishing before, but according to her mom, Barbara, “She was jumping up and down and must have asked me 10 times, ‘When are we going?’” Schmalzer said.

Claire was the first child to catch a fish, screaming, “I can’t believe it! I caught a fish!” again and again. And when Gwyneth Morse, 12, caught her first fish, Claire was equally excited.

“I can’t believe it! She caught a fish!” Claire yelled.

Thirteen-year-old Theo Woolzy has been fishing about 40 times; he brought his own fishing pole and was the one child who hooked the shrimp by himself. He’s a nature-lover and spends time racing for Sarasota Racing Team.

“TV is boring,” he says. “You can watch anything you want to on TV, but you aren’t actually out doing it.”