The Southwestern Michigan College bass fishing team has helped to spruce up St. Joseph a bit.
Coach Bill Mathews tells us the team spent last Friday at Silver Beach and all along the mouth of the St. Joseph River picking up trash, supported by sponsor Mule Fishing out of Grand Rapids.
“We were able to help do an awesome thing, clean up one of our local bodies of water that a lot of our anglers fish in all of the time,” Mathews said. “I know that I fish there quite a bit. So, we were able to clean up the St. Joe River and quite a bit of Silver Beach there in St. Joe as well in conjunction with Mule Fishing.”
Mathews says the bass fishing team, which is now in its second year, wanted to do something to help the community while supporting local anglers.
“There was garbage all over the place. So, we ended up filling probably a good 15 bags of garbage, filled up the back of a pickup truck, and we able to really get the river looking quite a bit better than when we got there, for sure.”
The volunteers were spread out all along Silver Beach and by the Benton Harbor boat launch. They picked up trash from the beach, the dunes, and the rocks along the river.
Mathews says they’re proud to have done it, and they want to make it an annual event.
The Southwestern Michigan College Roadrunners bass fishing team competes in fishing tournaments all over the country. It currently has 22 anglers.
