I do not know. Perhaps it is already being done. But from my experience just watching what happens when tournaments come to Lake Fork I see a lot of stupid stuff going on among some of the captains.

While I just leave it to the fact that some team members' Dad just went out and bought a boat to take said young angler in these tournaments I also see an accident waiting to happen. Possibly even a tragedy.

So does the THSBA put on seminars for the first and second year boat captains?

Are boat ramp, boating and fishing ethics discussed?

There is more to say but not in this open forum.

I think you are onto something here. Yes, it's a good thing that Dad went and bought a boat to be involved with his children, it really is. However, even grown men sometimes don't think their actions thru or even know any better. Small things such as boat ramp etiquette to actions on the water while fishing near someone are learned by the youngsters that are watching/participating and if they aren't taught the do's/dont's they won't ever know any better. I have also seen this with duck hunting on public waters. A while back I was set up and had a group come into my area, long story short they thought it was there spot (it was public) and after they left they pulled my kill switch and threw it in the water...After doing some investigating I found the individuals and went and spoke to them the next day. It was some high school aged kids that just took dads boat to go hunt. Needless to say Dad was furious at the boys and apologized to me for the incident. I explained to him that it wasn't "directly" his fault, but the boys were turned loose and had never been taught right from wrong. I also explained to the boys that some people may have handled the situation much differently... I am all for getting youngsters involved, as we were all once young ourselves, but habits are harder to be broken the longer they go on.

We already tried to do this with the help of Fun n Sun. Several seminars were in place covering several on the water issues, ramp etiquette, reading graphs, etc. Hardly anyone showed.

When I started captaining for the school I'm involved with, I was the ONLY one with tourney experience. The other captains were/are great guys and fished quite a bit but not in tourneys. Fishing on the weekend and fishing in a tourney are two very different things.
I made suggestions as to how things should be approached at the ramp and weigh-in during the meetings. We are a small club and it was very well received by the other captains.
It is amazing what some people do not understand but if you take a moment to explain it, they usually get it. (with that said, there will always be those who either just don't care or aren't going to do it. I see them at every HS tourney)

Tim and company have already tried to get something going and it wasn't well attended, as he posted. Hard to get people to captain as it is, getting them to attend a class on how to do or not do will be almost impossible. While I seriously applaud their efforts, they already have their hands full with this monster that is HS fishing.
Let them do what they do and let this stuff be addressed on a club level or by someone else who wants to take the reins on this issue.

That is correct. The fine folks at Fun n Sun brought it up and offered their Elite fleet on a Saturday just last month and I could count on my 2 hands how many showed up(less than 10). It would have been a perfect opportunity to learn from some of the Top tournament anglers in the DFW area all the things that get brought up on here all the time.

They have discussed doing this again at the last day of their annual in house tackle and boat show in January. Don't know if they will.

We can only do so much, like Txduckhunter said, it really needs to be a club to club responsibility. I bet a lot of local anglers would be glad to come out to a meeting to discuss some of the topics

when the high school team deal got started I remember a guy from Emory who spent a lot of time going from school to school talking to the BOE's convincing them that this is a good program and he was pretty successful.

Perhaps something on that order when the "clubs" meet or and on tournament day while the scores are being configured try to go over some points with just the captains for 15 minutes plus questions.

Bruce, when we first started you are correct, there was a gentleman that done those things. The reason he could was do them is because he was a stay at home dad. We(THSBA) all have full time jobs as well our own teams to run. Although,we would gladly accept volunteers to go and do this on behalf of the THSBA.As far as doing it while the results are getting tabulated, everyone is doing boat checks and the teams are ready to go. I understand you are offering advice and that is appreciated, but what really needs to happen is the team advisors be more informative to their boat captains. If everyone was to see the time that we spend during the weeks up to all the events and during the events. It would amaze them I'm sure.Thank you for what you do at Lake Fork events .

This is an interesting thread. I'd be happy to talk to you about it offline, Bruce, but is there something going on at these high school tournaments that isn't going on when every other tournament comes to Fork that has a large field? In my eyes, it's narrow sighted to have the opinion that daddy bought a boat to take kids out. These schools have to work very, very hard to find captains for every team at every event, so I'm sure there are guys out there with a little less tournament experience than others. If you want to PM me, I'll make sure the message gets passed on to the team at the school I've captained for in every major high school tournament that has come to Fork since 2014.

I'll also be happy to take a few minutes away from my booth at the annual Fun N' Sun show to speak if a boat captain seminar is offered during the show.

As a team/club advisor I would love to pass on information to my captains. This is only our first year as a club and we now have 2 tournaments under our belt. What are some topics/issue we should bring up or explain? Maybe a long with the topics would be explanations, please? I have fished some tournaments, but I know there are others who have much more experience than me.

It wasn't his opinion. He stated it as fact.

First of all welcome,
I will touch on a few.
1st- Make sure that everyone, kids, captains and parents understand the rules. There are safety infractions that occur at every event, I know there are because people are always saying, I seen so and so do this or what not.
2nd-Sportsmanship, please be respectful towards others on the water. Including hunters,recreational boaters, etc..
3rd-Have some information on Fish care, seems a lot of new teams and students, do not understand how to properly care for fish. Reach out to the Parks and Wildlife or local bass clubs. I'm sure they would be willing to attend a meeting to go over these things.
4th- Prepare your boat for launch before you get in line to launch, doesn't matter much now with the events being trailering.
5th- Patience, lots of new people joining and wanting to experience something with the kiddos of today. So be helpful instead of the opposite.
In the fast pace world we all get in a hurry and forget some of the simple things, I do myself. Maybe I have answered some of you on here with a short response and not the answers you were needing. We are all here to help get the kids involved in the outdoors. Let's remember that and be safe on the water.

Hopefully some others will chime in.

Having a tournament Marshal to handle the rule violations and such would help you. Ken, this would take that responsibility off your shoulders so you can focus on running the show. I am amazed at the few events I have been a capt at! with the 280 boats at PK, it went smooth and fast. The boat ramp wasnt all that bad and for the most part, everything went well IMO. I did hear allot of complaining while waiting for results about individual boats and such and I actually told those persons to bring it up to the TD. being that it was a mad house! this is when a Marshal would come in handy! so he or she can handle the rule violations and such. These kids fish to hard and with the numbers only going up from year too year, the rules have to be enforced.

Our November JC Outdoors tournament had a HS tournament the same day. We got to our spot a good 30 minutes before the HS teams got out. One team saw us catching fish and tried to move in on the spot we were on. It was about 15' wide. My partner started in on the captain and his remark was they are kids. At this point I took over the conversation. I let him know I had been an adviser for six years and this was one of the first things I taught our kids. And, that it was his job to teach them. When we got ready to leave, we offered the spot to them. If they had just went to another areas of the lake and duplicated the pattern they might have won it. We went to four other similar spots and caught over 100 fish.

easy fix, prior to any tournament a safety meeting of the capts/hs kids.

make it mandatory, repeat the same things every time, drill it in to them with repetition and they will learn.

just like driving a car the kids learn from the capt. and the capt. needs to know what is allowed and is not as well as etiquette at the ramp etc.

this way there is no excuse and participation is guaranteed.

another option, have a capt. only meet/greet/tournament before the hs series kicks off.

They had a mandatory captains meeting at Regionals last year, tourney went pretty solid. Same thing for State.

Having a mandatory meeting for the regular tourneys could pose problems for the captains to be able to attend. Most guys can't/aren't going to take a day off just to be able to make a meeting where they are volunteering their time.