Thanks to everyone who volunteered. Here are a few answers.
We never now until season starts and lakes are set just how many teams and schools will show up. We had no idea there would be this many teams in the West division. You can almost guarantee we will be splitting into 2 divisions for the West next year.

There is a Boat captain side pot for the captains that want to participate, some do and some don't. A lot of the captains will fish to show anglers how to work a bait, etc...

Boat launch, yes Champs may not have a issue, but like said these are 1 person doing it instead of 2. When I did this with my son, it took just e minute because he could drive the boat.

Like mentioned, I would recommend everyone help from a team. We used to meet and follow each other to the ramp, then we would back each other in and then go park each other's truck. It saves a lot of time.

At Ray Hubbard we did allow the boats to leave ramp at anytime and go to their spot. This will be the norm for EVERY trailering event we have this season. That may be the case for the remainder of the West, don't know.

One thing about the THSBA is we are not afraid to change and adapt for the growth . We haven't even been fishing a month and are already talking about changes for next season because of the growth,

Thanks to all involved, captains ,anglers, parents

May I suggest changing the rule that makes our geographical location dictate what division we fish? We were forced to fish in the West Division and I can't stand the lakes we are fishing. With all other tournament trails you can pick which division you want to fish. My son and I prefer to fish the lakes you have in the Central Division or East Division, but we can't because of where we live. Our city of residence or school we attend shouldn't be the deciding factor of where we fish. Just my opinion but thanks for all you do.

I'm sorry but unfortunately that is the only way we can do it. If we opened it up to pick the division then we could have 300 in the central or east and 100 in the west. We do it that way to try and control the numbers. You may fish in any division, but the points only count in your specified division.

Super easy solution to this. Let them launch from ramp of their choice and start them on first cast via cell time and/or text message. There's zero reason at that level to put kids and their volunteer captains through that. Then at Championships with smaller fields you can move back to numbered launch for the pomp and circumstance if you must.

I know they want all the kids to fish but why not have school qualifiers and then only take a few teams from each school. As fast as its growing I don't see how you can't do a qualification system before long. As fast as its growing they will have close to 600 teams on rayburn this year.

We have done that this year already.

We will not have that many on Rayburn, it is a percentage of the East and Houston. As stated above, we have no idea on how many will show up until season is started. We will never have a event like others do down south with 450+ boats. We would figure something else out. That's just way to many boats. We had no idea there would be 250+ at Lewisville till last week..

I usually launch from another ramp to avoid the crowds. Sometimes you can't - depending on the lake - but that's what I try to do. Helps a ton!! Volunteer backers would speed things up but liability is always an issue I guess.

I don't like being stuck in a division either. We are East of 75 and going west doesn't seem to make sense. But I understand the reasoning. Still, do all regions have 260+ teams? If not maybe something like "redistricting" could occur every so often?

BY THE WAY - no kids in it, just volunteering to help kids learn (but I don't fish - afraid I'll catch the one they need, or more likely, like happens sometimes prefishing, I'll catch them and they won't - at least if it's only during prefishing, they can say "they're not biting today") 😆

I was there, thanks to all the volunteers. That said if they can't get things running smoother at launch its going to hurt their ability to get captains. It is not a lake I have spent much time on and didn't feel comfortable running in dark with somebody else kids in boat. That ramp launches 3 boats at a time and there was some sillyness going on. One of mine was comfortable driving boat and beaching so we dropped in water in about 30 seconds, others were not doing this and were taking extreme amounts of time. Lots of bs at ramp. Lots of these folks don't fish many tourneys. Once you got to where the line started there is really no turning around. We had a single digit number, we were there 1.5 hours before launch time, it took 2 hours from the time we got in line till I got to the ramp. Clearly we missed our time, in fact by the time we got launched there was no more number calling it was just go. There were lots of boats in line behind us. The folks that run these need to seriously consider making them trailer events.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^

We always look at relocating teams. No not all divisions have 260. West didn't either last year, we would like to keep all divisions less than 200. If this means moving schools around we will. Like I said previously, we have no idea how many teams will sign up until the first event. If we need to move to a trailering event for the remainder of the West events then we definately will. You can bet we have been discussing it all week.
People mention volunteer backers, that would be great, but who wants to volunteer? Nobody . We have adapted every year to try and accomadate the growth and have done so pretty good, I feel.Thank you for helping get kids on the water.

Aren't you still gonna have problems at weigh with 250+ trucks and tailers trying to park? Or would it be beach boat, weigh in and go back to ramp you launched from?

Yes, and yes, you could go back to load up after you weighed in your fish if wanted too.

I think trailering would definetly help with some of the pressure in launching. Weigh in went REALLY well yesterday. THSBA did a phenomenal job in that aspect.

We launched from arrowhead and drove over to Check in which was a mad house!
This is my 1st year being a Captian and I really enjoyed it especially after seeing my kid catch his PB on a jig after showing him how to fish one.
I may have not been on the right part of the lake because for having 268 boats I saw more recreational boats then I did other tournament boats.