I have been involved in tournament fishing for over 30 years now and I have been involved in high school fishing in Texas since its inception. Every tournament that I have been involved with that had anyone get hurt or die because of "IE boat collision, ejection, drowning etc." has been an adult tournament. Please tell me when this has happened in a high school tournament in Texas.

Why do you have a problem with HS fishing?

My original post says "Hope nobody gets hurt. A lot of children being captained by inexperienced boaters. Its probably going to take someone getting hurt before it gets checked."

IN SUMMARY, I didn't say it has happened yet. But from the crowded tournaments and A LOT of inexperienced captains its only a matter of time.

Well most have a problem with it from what they have personally witnessed on the water from participants not necessarily from a clueless zero etiquette perspective because thats been atrocious since it started. I have a problem with it mainly due to safety and MAJORLY the fact complete strangers ask me every year to captain their high school kids... "I got your number from so and so and was wondering if you could....." A 250 horsepower boat is not a toy yet I have parents call me every year wanting me to captain their children who ive never even met. I have been asked to captain prob 20 times and refuse.

I understand what you are saying Barrett...if this sport is going to grow there needs to be a very serious approach taken for the education and safety of the kids.....

If you consider yourself a safe operator than I’d say the parents are doing the right thing by asking you. You can politely decline.

Are these HS teams in any way connected to a "club" at their High School? As a teacher I could see how it would be very easy to do some ethics and safety education in a school club setting. I have sponsored Outdoor Clubs at school before and these were the things we discussed, as well as tactics and gear. I am sure some of the local tournament anglers and Bass Clubs would love to come talk to the youngsters and try to impart the ethics we were taught when we were youngsters.

I have experienced just as many boaters with zero etiquette and just as many if not more safety issues in the adult tournaments I have fished as I have the High School tournaments I have captained in. There are many new boaters in the adult tournaments also. What I hear from you is that you are griping about safety about things that have never happened for the simple fact something could happen in the future. I have been in adult tournaments where boats have collided and death has occurred. That has never happened in any high school tournament that I have been in.

You stated earlier that people are "BANKING" off of high school fishing. Can you provide any examples of this or are you just talking out of your a$$ with zero knowledge of how any of it works? I am pretty sure that you are like about 95% of the other people that make that statement and you actually have zero knowledge of how high school fishing operates.

Going to be tough in Housen. Most of the leaders are there and you can bet over half the field for the high school event will be there also. Add that to the weekend guys that will be crammed into the place and it will open the door for the guys fishing away from people

HS fishing is not a UIL sport. It is the same model for HS shotgun shooting teams. A 501C3 company is started and they use something really fun like shooting and fishing to draw a crowd, they go and introduce the club to the schools and they take off. They write bylaws and such usually requiring a school to "sponsor" the team. School sponsorship usually means a teacher volunteers to get involved, the school provides a place to meet, and the kids wear the name of the school other than that it is not a school sport. People do profit, the owner of the 501C3 can pay themselves and other employees a salary. I do not know how the Texas high school fishing one is run but the shotgun one was run this way and there were several who worked hard but were paid very nice salaries. The money to pay those salaries comes through grants from corporations like Midway USA and dues paid by individual shooters. Coaches were all trained volunteers, mostly parents, just like the boat captains, the only ones paid were hired employees of the 501C3. Prizes are usually donated product or cash from cooperate donations. Donating corporations are on board because they get to write off their donations to a 501C3 and then they are getting future customers interested in the sport.

The great is it is fun for kids that may not be good at other sports and a good way for kids and parents or other mentors to spend time outside together.

The bad is it is very popular, often unorganized because of the volunteer nature of the organizations, and ripe for safety and cheating/ethics issues.

After captaining a couple of times as a favor to a friend, I will fish elsewhere if I know there is a HS tournament scheduled on the lake, it is a zoo...

Barrett hits the nail on the head. I captained for 3 years early on. Now I captain for my kid when he passes algebra.... rarely lol. We are just gonna fish bigger stuff together the rest of this year because I think it's a better deal. I don't dislike high school fishing but I really dislike some of the other captains. Their experience level stinks. It's not the kids fault it's the captains who ran out and bought a boat, have never fished bigger stuff or anything to learn the ropes of what not to do. It's not addressed in the club meetings and if if was it doesn't matter because some of those guys aren't gonna listen anyway. I do think the thsba has done a very good job in shrinking their field sizes with more divisions, I think moving to trailer events was a big improvement, I think their rules are good. They suffer from the same issues every other tourny suffers from which is there are always gonna be a few clowns do dumb stuff because that's just how people are. You can't blame thsba for that. I think it's gets a little amplified because normally some stuff would get sorted out by fellow anglers on the water. There is a tendency to not say anything because there are kids around so you just let it go and the knuckleheads take advantage of it. If some of the dads fished a tto, a champs, a ttt and pulled some of the stuff I have seen the parking lot after would straighten them out.

And who says the sport needs to grow? ? ? So often I read, on the forum, about how the lakes are too crowded, and we need more lakes. This is generally what this thread is about. What is growing the sport gonna get ya, other than already crowded lakes and complaining about too many folks on the lake. And on, and on, and on.

Just askin’. . .

I've seen the etiquette problem both ways. There are definitely quite a few high school captains that do not know what is proper and what is not. On two different occasions I have had captains pull up on me and have their kids through over my kids lines.

I have also seen two BassChamp guys swarm a high school boat on Rayburn after the high schoolers caught a few 4 lbers. In that case, the kids were sitting out on a ledge by themselves and the BassChamps guys were not even close when they first started catching fish.

In another tournament on Rayburn my tournament partner had his kids starting on the edge of a flat that he had been fishing for years. About 30 minutes after BassChamps released one of their boats started going in circles around the high school boat throwing crankbaits at the boat while cussing at them. Later we found out the the BassChamps guys found out about the spot through the grapevine from one of my buddies good friends that originally showed him the spot. The BassChamps guys had just found out about the spot fairly prior to the event. So in other words, the BassChamp guys were really the hole jumpers and were harassing the high school boat for being there.

Everyone wants to blame all these problems on the high school captains but the adults in the adult tournaments are just as bad. However, this forum doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that the regular tournament guys are also a problem.

In a regular tournament stuff like that gets dealt with different.