Hillary Martin will be there soon if I am were a betting man

When you say "popularity" what do you mean???... When they have a tournament does the whole school come out to the weigh in and cheer them on like a football or basketball game???... Do they have conference, district and state champs like they do in other high school sports???... How many kids are on a typical high school team??? 2, 5,10, 25, 50, 80... I know they'll say they had a tournament at Lake Y and 300 boats showed up... How many high schools were represented???... Is this just local teams or are they traveling from surrounding states???... I've got no experience with this at all... I've got one grandson in college and he never mentioned high school fishing and all my other grandkids are single digit aged kids... Dan

I think that Hillary Martin has the skill, the backing, etc. to make it.

I think it could happen

It's not on par with the "popularity" of the major HS sports, yet.
However, there are qualifiers, regional and State events in THSBA. You have to finish above a certain mark to move to regionals and then again to advance to State.
Other HS programs (BASS and MLF) have tournaments with a "Championship". They also offer a World Finals that you just pay to attend.
I know the division I captain for has around 40 schools in that division. The school I captain for has 13-14 teams. There are schools with many more teams.
I don't know how you define popular but HS fishing has exploded in the last few years. Some of these kids are the real deal and some are not. Last couple of college championships were won by THSBA alumni - so there's that.
Can a girl/woman show up and dominate?
Who knows..... I would think yes, for several reasons, but it hasn't happened yet, nor do I look for it to happen on a national level in the foreseeable future..

It would be a total waste of time and money for a woman to fish tournaments.They can’t complete,and they are all ready dominating it on YouTube.

A woman with the drive and hustle to fish professionally and be successful could make 100X doing something else in life.

The ROI on the effort and monetary investment to fish "professionally" is one of the worst ventures that exists.

Sooooooo the Danica Patrick of fishing?

Very true.

Could a woman build a sponsor portfolio and social media following to offset tourney entry fees/costs to consistently make $100K+?

It also begs the question of how do you define "successful" in the pro tournament ranks?

Where a woman finishes in a field of 220 boats may not matter. Showing up and promoting does.

She has 98,000 subs on YouTube with almost 8 million views, 123,000 followers on Instagram.
She is on the University of Alabama fishing team this year.
She is already making more money than most bass fishing men will ever see.

How many guys would KILL to have even 1 year in the top 10 of a sport. Earned 1.8 million in race earnings that year not magazine covers.

This is my fist year at doing the high school thing and I can tell you this the turnout, to see this is overwhelming. We've had major numbers of people so far come to the weigh ins and probably the biggest turn out was at Bob Sandlin. The crowd was probably equivalent to that of a 5A football game. I liked have never gotten back to the boat ramp where I could retrieve my boat and had to leave the facility to turn my boat trailer around to get headed back to the boat ramp. Twok was nearly as bad. Fork was big crowd as well but a lot of the teams came in to weigh from the lake and landed at other boat ramps so it was crowded but not as bad as the other two.

You will learn to be ramp specific and know which lakes it is easier to come by water to weigh-in. I will come by water at Twok from now on if the weather allows. I always do at Sandlin,Fork and Pines. Palestine is a no-go for boat access but there is plenty of truck parking at Deep End but I would not launch there.
The problem now is spectators and their poor parking habits. Really makes it hard for captains and anglers at times.

That’s great but they don’t let you in the Elite Series because you are popular. What has she won?

It is about making money, winning is just an extra. Her NIL money will be more the next four years than most will ever see winning.