Heard of several several WILD stories of people doing what they should not have done and gone where they should not have gone with Young People in those conditions. They even had to call out the Jasper Sheriff Dept. for one boat.
But hopefully there will be a lesson learned since nobody got hurt.

After seeing the last post I'm a little surprised at the tone. I don't think calling people names because they chose to fish a tournament without the facts or assuming everyone that fishes tournaments has no common sense is helpful.

I was a boat captain for the deep east tournament yesterday and had two High school students with me (one of which was my son) we watched the weather reports very closely and were undecided on the tournament until. The tournament director declared the tournament a trailering event. we went to Harvey creek boat ramp and ran to the back of Harvey. (and yes when the wind got up the gust were strong) we chose to fish an area we had not fished within a couple of miles of the truck and under the bank The boys caught fish but not the quality we could have gotten in our primary area ( we have a 21' boat and could have taken the chance) we chose to remain cautious and were prepared to take a 0 rather than take those chances.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who volunteers as a boat Captain for these kids would knowingly put them in danger. I know in this world there a those people who don't exercise the best common sense at times, but I can tell you this as a parent that it will only take one event and that person will not Captain, coach or otherwise be a leader of my child again. The people who volunteer as boat captains do so to allow the kids to do something they love and the kids would not get that opportunity without them. If you believe the boat captains are not acting in the best interest of the kids then get involved and volunteer to help one of these teams I know almost every school has kids that want to fish but don't get to because of a shortage of boat captains.

Also the tournament Directors of these events (at least the ones my son has competed in) also value the safety of the kids above the tournament such as in the "allowing trailering" (deep east actually canceled a couple last year due to weather) If you are aware of some who doesn't then spread the word and I promise you that organization won't last long. I will close my rant by saying as a father I hope I am doing much greater things for my son than creating the next generation of MORON'S

Doug, I do agree with you there are captains out there each and every tournament that do not have experience on the water that many of us do. I do wish they COULD implement a type of criteria that would assure each captain was competent.

What would you suggest they do to fix the problem? Unfortunately, there's no black and white guidelines to say a guy is experienced enough or worthy of being a boat captain. It's kinda like say you gotta be pretty to enter a beauty contest. Please define "pretty".

I hope and pray neither Doug or myself is proven true in our opinions, but I am also in touch with reality enough to know that as big as these high school organizations are getting and the quality of captains that are involved along with their "less than ship size" boats, it's not an "if" but "when" will something happen.

I hope captains all over read this post and it scares the daylights out of them, and they/we all think twice before doing something silly with 2 kiddos in our boat.

First off let me say to my knowledge the organizers don't pick the boat captains or assign them to the kids. My wife is the advisor for our high school team, and she does not assign captains. on our team the parents have to find a captain and then bring that person to the advisor (and yes they have to pass a background check) the advisor does not assess their boating or fishing skills. I would hope that if the parents are going to send their children out on the lake with someone that they either know that person or have checked into their experience and equipment. I know I would be very familiar with anyone my son went with. none of the tournament organizations I deal with recruit kids to fish. they post a tournament and take entry's from the various schools (which have to pay a fee to be members and these funds are raised by children and parents) High school fishing is voluntary and in texas it is not as yet sanctioned by UIL. It is a parent driven affair.

for an advisor it would be tough to determine the quality of captains and be the one to tell a student you can't fish because we don't know about your captain or you can't fish because you don't have a 21' ranger, triton, or nitro ect. All the advisors and tournament directors can do is stress the safety and Yes make the tough call to cancel a tournament when conditions dictate. What do you do when its the child's parents.

Now I'm not so na�ve as to think that there are parents out there who want their child to win so bad that no risk is too great. Not sure what you do about that or a parent who doesn't ensure who his child is with.

to your point Texas does now offer a boating license program for those born after 1993 (I think) maybe we should require boat captains to take that before becoming eligible to captain. However I will say this one politically incorrect statement (you can't fix stupid) so not sure how effective that might be. There are risk involved with every sport or extracurricular activity that our kids participate in (did you see the story of the band buses that were involved in a chain reaction crash on the way to a football game Friday) and unless we are willing to lock our kids in their rooms I'm not sure how we will eliminate those risk completely.

Also Deep East Texas does limit the size of their field it is limited to 100 teams (they have never gotten more than about 40).

I'm sorry sir but I feel you are judging a group of people based on a few bad examples or incomplete information. I will state for the record I am all for making the events safer, and I'm sure the tournament directors would love to hear any ideas, but I'm not sure not letting kids participate in events is the answer.