Simone Biles Knows Her Way Around a Rod and Reel

While fishing is not (yet?) an Olympic sport, plenty of Olympians love to fish – possibly to feed their competitive spirits or alternatively as a way to decompress from the stressors of training and competition. Twenty-seven year old gymnast Simone Biles – all 4’8” of her – is among that group. She’s earned 11 Olympic medals (the most for a U.S. gymnast) across multiple events, and based on some social media evidence it appears that if she just had a bit more time she might get seriously into angling.

It’s not a new interest. Back in 2016, she reported a great family fishing trip in Belize –  the country of her mother’s birth --catching 35 fish and standing up to nasty weather.

Earlier this year her husband Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears, used his new position in the Windy City to put in some work on the big pond.

And here they are at it together in Belize a couple of years back:

She told the New York Times that her family is “big on fishing trips,” not surprisingly for competitive reasons: “My mom, two older brothers, my younger sister and I head out by 7 in the morning on a boat with a local fisherman, who takes us to the best fishing spots. It’s so much fun because we make teams and compete to see who can catch the biggest fish or the most fish. Usually, we catch snappers and groupers, and occasionally, we’ll get a barracuda.”

We had Randy Moss, Travis Pastrana and other pro athletes at the Bassmaster Classic Celebrity Pro-Am earlier this year. Next year they need to invite Biles and Owens.