1. What would it mean for your or your child school for their bass club to bring home the win?

2. What kind of money do HS�s or districts pump into fishing clubs?

3. What kind of gear (rods, reels, baits) do the students typically have access to?

I�d be excited for my son to get a win, mostly for the fact we pre fish and try to learn ourselves. I�d also be very excited for our club to get the overall. Out of about 9 teams we have I think we are the only ones that pre fished for this weekends tournament. We have kids that love to fish, parents could care less. When a team hires the best local pro and doesn�t fish the entire year except for the tournament, placing high in the tournament isn�t so exciting in my opinion. To me, it� should be more than just about winning or placing in the top ten.

Our high school puts zero dollars in to the club because it�s an �after school� club. They don�t get involved st all other than the grade check.

Rods, reels, gear, etc. we see it all. We�ve had quite a bit of soft plastics and some other baits donated. We�ve had rods donated also. Surprisingly, the soft plastics were hard to get rid of, not many kids wanted them.

Great info!!

How do you think you school would respond if your students won the THSBA championship?

Great question, honestly I�m not sure. I think they�d definitely be excited but not sure it would change the schools involvement. They won�t even let us set up a booth during orientation. They did let us the first year but not the last two years. Principal says they can�t get involved in after school clubs and wants to be fair to everyone. I respect that, rules are rules, and he�s doing his job. I think there are advantages and disadvantages of having the school oversee the club. Personally, I like having parents in control of the club but there are disadvantages of that also. We do have full control of our money which makes it easy to help out our members as we see needed.

My wife and I oversee my sons high school club and helped him start it three years ago. We have trouble getting the parents involved. We bought two very nice pop up canopies last year to set up at our tournaments with the expectation that a parent would grill out and we�d make it more social. We can�t get parents to volunteer. I told them it�s one Saturday for the entire year and we have 18 sets of parents and only five tournaments plus state and regional.

Bringing home the win would mean a lot. As stated above, that is because it would be from our time on the water and learning as we go. I am the boat captain for one of the only two girl teams in our region and last year they made it to regionals. Often times we wonder how much they want it, but I can tell you I have seen the girls fish in wind, rain, cold, and never once did they say lets head in. Did not win, but we had a lot of fun and hopefully memories for a long time.

Money is limited, but it is changing. They have patches for the lettermen jackets, have made announcements, etc. but it is not sponsored by the district so there are limitations.

There have been some gear, but again limited. Funny, like stated above, most of the slower baits are not as leveraged. I think it is because we are talking about High Schoolers who want to be more active while fishing. Again, we are learning but it takes time to slow down.

Winning the THSBA championship, that would be unbelievable. I do not know who would be more excited, me or my team.

1. What would it mean for your or your child school for their bass club to bring home the win?

It would send my son into Orbit. He has been recognized in front of the school board before for making the state tournament

2. What kind of money do HS�s or districts pump into fishing clubs?

0.00

3. What kind of gear (rods, reels, baits) do the students typically have access to?

From what I have seen whatever the parents provide or if a boat captain lets them use some of their gear. I let my sons partner use my stuff if his breaks or if he needs it. Most parents dont understand the need for good equipment imho

1. What would it mean for your or your child school for their bass club to bring home the win?
- My son and his partner were last year's state champs and I captained all season for them. It was, and still is, very exciting and the club pushes it a lot as well. Our booster club President, and all involved on the board of our booster club, are very active and do a great job with fundraising and sponsorship and I believe they have used the fact that our boys were state champs as a selling point to recruit more sponsors (not that they needed it because they had done a fantastic job of fundraising the year before as well). I really cant say enough good things about the parents and families involved in our booster club and the effort that they put in. This is the real make or break of a successful team in my opinion because they money and excitement cant come from the school given that the events arent UIL events.

2. What kind of money do HS�s or districts pump into fishing clubs?
- HS and District dont put any money into the club, it is all booster club related funds. As stated above, this is an after school club and not UIL sanctioned sport.

3. What kind of gear (rods, reels, baits) do the students typically have access to?
- Gear depends on the family/captain. I have an unhealthy addiction to receiving new gear deliveries so my boys have a ridiculous amount of high end gear to use. I dont fish the events, not even the district events, but my rods are always in the boat. I would think at any tournament my boys would have 35-40 rods in the boat when you include theirs with mine. Other teams, and many others, probably only have 4-6 rods in the boat. Again, the gear is only provided by the kids fishing or their boat captain.

4. How do you think you school would respond if your students won the THSBA championship?
- Our school has gone above and beyond to highlights these boys. We just got our State Tournament rings last week and they were presented to us at the School Board meeting. They have done facebook live interviews with the boys and the superintendent, made them a part of seasonal awards programs even though the sport is not a school function, got the boys on the local news (or at least someone did). Our school district has taken this non-school function and really highlighted it and our team has grown quite a bit this year because of it. Of course our school has always been supportive of the fishing team. They have always allowed our kids to have excused absences on Friday's before the tournaments, use of facilities for booster club meeting, having a table setup at freshman orientation, etc. I have read on here that other schools basically "tolerate" the team but offer no support and we have not had to deal with that here.

My son has been fishing the last three years with Lone Star Jr. Bass Masters Club, Which is an awesome Bass Club for kids and Teens who want to get started in Tournament Fishing. Thanks A lot to our Club President / Founder Robert Brown. This will be my sons last year with the club, since he is a Freshman in High School now. Our current High School does not have a Club. I was wondering what would it take to start one? And if it does not go as planned can he Join another High School Club? Just need to get info or Ideas on how to Start a club , since I'll Probably be the one doing it.

Pretty easy to start a team. If your school is not interested, you can do it independently from the school. Simply go to www.texashighschoolbassassn.com and print off the membership packet, fill it out and send it in along with the membership fees per student. You will get your students� THSBA membership numbers emailed to you once the packet has been processed. Once you have the membership numbers, to enter an event, all you do is enter online on the website.

Lots of info on the division pages on the website. Website is very user friendly as well.

The sport is growing right in front of our eyes!

Absolutely great feedback everyone!

What is the best apprach for starting a conversation with a booster club? Does it have to start with a victory before they get fully on board? I would love to interview you and your champs to try to put together a presentation for schools to provide more support for this exploding part of the sport!

To start a booster club you just needs kids with a passion for fishing and parents that want to feed that, and 1 person associated with the school I believe. Our club didn't have any victories for the first couple of years that I am aware of. My memory is a bit detached on the specifics of our start but I can remember 2 seniors that seemed to get everything going, but I wasn't behind the scenes at that point. I will shoot you a PM if you want to call but you might find better information from our booster club people for the information you are looking for. I can pass your information along and I know Tim can probably point you in the right direction as well. THSBA is great with their support in these start up clubs.

All of this depends on the school.
The school I've been captaining for could pretty much care less about the HS teams success or failure.
In the last 5 years they have had teams that have managed to "check" multiple times through the season, won wood at multiple tournaments, qualified for Regionals and State for the last 3 years, earned a spot at the National Championship and it's pretty much ignored. I honestly don't know if they would even put a trophy in the case if the kids won a "school" trophy.
However, there are other schools (Lindale and Grand Saline in our area) that embrace the teams and a knowledge their accomplishments.

Money question has been answered by several. Get a booster club and work gathering sponsors.

My boys are pretty geared up but I find they are an exception.

I'm an advisor for white oak. We won the state title as a team last year. The kids were pumped and it has helped get a local college to start recruiting a few team members. with that said all the money we raise is from sponsor spots on the jerseys or fund rasiers. No kick back from the school. they are very supportive of the team and treat it as a school team even having the school sign out front remade with the state title for fishing on it. Gear wise we have a few sponsors that kick free gear our way, bass assassin usually sends 60 to 80 pounds of soft plastics each year and sometimes we manage to get a few rods from skeeter. Most of the gear will come from boat captains and parents.

As a high school angler weighing in a good bag or a good fish is a great day out on the water to me. A win would be fantastic and something us students would cherish for a long time, even if its just a regular tourney win.

Money wise - This is my High Schools first year and like other responses the schools cannot contribute much for our club. My partner and I, as well as a couple others are trying local buisness for small donations or sponsorships to help pay for tournament fees.

For equipment I purchased two Rods & Reels that I fish with all the time, and they get the job done just fine (which for sure helped me get faster and not taking 5 minutes to re-tie😂) My dad has offered me to use his pole as long as I don't leave a fingerprint on his beloved Zepco 33, LOL.

Thanks for the info!!