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Hennessy piled up many awards before turning 18.
Jelani Hennessy works the shoreline of a small cove at Lake Anna. He has fished in four Bassmaster Open events so far.
Jelani Hennessy, the youngest angler in the Bassmaster Open, releases a largemouth bass he caught while fishing at Lake Anna Wednesday. |
BY TAFT COGHILL JR.
When Jelani Hennessy was 4 years old, his father took him fishing for the first time.
Hennessy's reel became tangled and James Hennessy started to unravel it.
That's when Hennessy crept over to pick up his father's reel and cast the line into a stream on the Potomac River.
In one try, Hennessy caught his first fish.
"It was just pure excitement," Hennessy recalled. "That was it for me. I was hooked for the rest of my life."
Hennessy, 18, said he has gone fishing every weekend since that day.
Now the 2009 Caroline High School grad is the youngest competitor on the Bassmaster Open professional tour. He has competed in four events this season, with five remaining.
"I don't look at myself as being the youngest out there," Hennessy said. "I just consider myself another fisherman."
As a black teenager, Hennessy is far from the norm on a tour dominated by middle-age white men. He's one of three blacks on the tour.
Hennessy turned professional at 17 and has been featured in several outdoors magazines.
"This has been his life," said his mother, Angela Cates. "This is all he's known since he was 4 years old."
That may be an understatement.
After the first outing with his father, Hennessy began reading books on fishing and viewing the videos ordered by his mother.
He read the books every chance he got, including en route to church.
When he was 8 years old, Hennessy saw competitive bass fishing on ESPN and decided on that as a career.
"His tenacity and drive to be the best he can be in the sport of bass fishing is amazing for his age," said Mac McManus, whose auto repair company, Mac's Service Center, sponsors Hennessy. "Most young adults do not want to work as hard as he does."
Cates initially didn't want Hennessy to pursue bass fishing as a career.
She attempted to steer him in other directions because she knew little about the sport.
She first encouraged Hennessy to try karate.
He achieved Purple Belt status, but refused to spar against girls.
"He would just sit there, and they would beat the living stink out of him," Cates said.
So Cates encouraged Hennessy to try basketball, football and bowling.
He enjoyed all three, but fishing remained his passion.
"It's been a daily thing," Cates said. "It's never stopped. It's just in him."
That's why Cates eventually gave in.
She attempted to find fishing clubs near the family's home in Gaithersburg, Md., but had no luck.
So she and Hennessy moved to Virginia in 2003. Cates settled on Lake Land'Or subdivision in Ruther Glen, and Hennessy joined a fishing club in Radford.
Cates kept her job as a nurse at Prince George's Hospital Center in Maryland and made the two-hour commute. She and Hennessy later moved to Bowling Green and currently reside in Hanover County.
"There are 14 different lakes [in Lake Land'Or] and I knew he wouldn't get bored," Cates said of making the move. "He got in there and just went crazy."
Hennessy fished every day after school.
He organized youth fishing tournaments in the neighborhood. He practiced on the Potomac River and Lake Anna.
He finished second in the Casting Kids national competition in Orlando, Fla., in 2004.
Hennessy even thought about fishing while asleep.
"One night I heard some screaming in his room," Cates said. "I went in there and he's like 'I got him! I got him!' He was dreaming that he caught the big one. I said 'Cut that line, boy, and let that fish go. It's 2 o'clock in the morning.'"
Hennessy shows the same exuberance when he catches a fish while awake.
He said one of the highlights of his rookie season was competing against idol Rick Clunn.
And before a recent purchase of a new boat, he turned heads by competing with the smallest boat on tour--the same one his mother bought for him when he was 12.
"It's kind of surreal," Hennessy said of turning pro so early. "I dreamed of fishing this circuit, but I never thought it would happen this soon. It's just wonderful."
Taft Coghill Jr.: 540/374-5526
Email: tcoghill@freelancestar.com
| In 2007, Caroline High School grad Jelani Hennessy was named the Junior Angler of the Year by the Youth BASS Federation Nation of Virginia.
In 2008, he entered six Bassmaster Open events as a co-angler. He finished 16th in the Central division standings and 20th in the Southern division. He had two top-10 finishes, earning him $3,500. Hennessy accomplished that while maintaining honor roll grades at Caroline. He's now a rising freshman pre-med major at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Everybody has to have a backup plan," Hennessy said of his goal of becoming a doctor. Hennessy turned professional last November. He can earn as much as $50,000 with a first-place finish in an event on the Bassmaster Open tour, and top-50 finishers are eligible for cash prizes. His best showing this season is a 57th-place finish in the Chesapeake Bay Northern Bassmaster Open in April. He has five of nine tournaments remaining beginning with a Northern division event Aug. 20-22 in Plattsburgh, N.Y. His goal as a rookie is to achieve one top-50 finish. |
