I was just curious, what would it take to create a sanctioned fishing club? I think it would be cool to start a fishing club in the local area, i'm not shure of any around this location. meet once or twice a month, share fishing stories, tackle information, tips on targeting certain species, cook out, have monthly big fish awards, etc... etc...
[signature]
fishing clubs are tricky,
starting new clubs usualy disband in a season or two,
the ones that stand up to the test of time usualy have the same thing in common, goals, Primary and secondary.
the day of loose leaf fishing organizations are gone out with the tied. they usualy met in a common place at a local tavern to boast of conquest.
todays clubs needs structure, no not that of a fortune 500 club. in most parts office business can be delt with in a few short minutes of a meetings time leaveing much room for leasure.
back to goals a single simple yearly goal can propell a club for years. You will want to look at goals of sucessfull fishing clubs, they all have one thing in common, that is that the members all have the same intrest, a bass club wants to fish every body it can in its existance and have a tournament or two. trout unlimited have the goal of wanting to plant trout in every sutible body of water for catch and release. Walleye clubs like to meet both common goal much the same as bass and trout clubs.
starting up a big fish club would not be all that difficult. start with a couple guys and start keeping fishing records. your goal would be to mark big species specimen and the waters they were found, you can do catch and release, you can make our anual 16 species contest as part of your club activity. weather it is for compitition or just a club activity matters not.
Local chapters would decide if their club would be raising funds to suport them selves or for a charity.
the other main reason or goal these clubs have in common are a few people who want a night or two out of the house per month to talk about fishing and share same intrest with those who have the same.
make your clubs start out simple, meet at mc donalds one evening for coffee a month and throw a dollar or two in a jar, they have tables that will seet quite a few people, and if you out grow mc donalds you can move on to other establishments like the basement of a church, these days many of the larger sporting centers have free meeting rooms for fishing clubs to use. there are two gandermountains near me and both have such meeting rooms.
there is a plus side to a BigFishTackle club if it uses a goal of 16 species is that it will allow anglers who like to target one or several different sepcies to partisipate.
each club need at least simple requisits, such as comon markings. patches, boat decals, ect. this will draw new members who do not want be part of a large regimented orginization.
Utah has the largest BigFishTackle clubs around they are a suscessfull loose leaf group and have been active for several years now. At least I think they are loose leaf, I havent heard of any one actualy holding an office.
you can have peer fishing clubs or ice fishing even boat and or fly fishing BigFishTackle clubs if you cand find local people who are serious about fishing and are not just out for the catching. there is a lot of that to contend with. You might even be able to make it a family BFT fishing group where you and a couple other families to start things off, that would get you in to the running of getting a club going.
what state are you fishing out of?
[signature]
I fish in South Carolina; saltwater and fresh water; mostly saltwater. This is what sparked my attention. There is a fishing siminar the 20th of this month. They are going to talk about fishing tips, fishing conservation, introduce new products, etc... etc... Bill Dance is going to be there, all that good stuff. What if someone started a club and did that once or twice a month, instead of once or twice a year. You wouldn't believe how many people i've talked to that say they tried fishing a couple of times and never did it again because they never caught anything, or it was boring, etc.. etc.. What if there was a place a person could go and learn how to catch fish in thier local waters, by local pro's and or maybe an occasional pro like Bill Dance or Flip Pallat. Maybe contact some of those T.V. pro's and get some sponsorship, hell, the way I see it, if you get your crap together, and are really sending out the right message, the sky is the limit with something like that. Am I thinking nieve? [pirate] Maybe i'll give some of those guys a holler and see if they want to start up a club. [cool]
[signature]
[size 1]nieve, NO. dalusions of grandure posibly so.[/size]
[size 1][/size]
[size 1]I am not saying that it cant be done, actualy it is done.[/size]
[size 1][/size]
[size 1]if you have an intrest in doing this monthly or by-monthly seminar contact bass pro shop cabellas or gandermountain.[/size]
[size 1][/size]
[size 1]you may even want to contact your local park divisions and let them know you are willing to head up an undertaking of this nature on a split comission.[/size]
[size 1][/size]
[size 1]you have a targeted audiance, I have done the same imprompet interveiws and I have even taken people out and showed them what to do and they even have caught a few record sized fish under my watch. but they would make poor club members, how ever if you are offering a class and you hold it on a peir on a saturday afternoon you may attract the same people back every week for a period of time like a month or two. same in a pro shop.[/size]
the draw back of trying to call in guest speakers is that it cost mega bucks to get these guys to fly out from their prespective homes. the up side is the above mentioned posible sponcors have vidio capabilityies where you can reveiw the works of the masters and then take it to the peir and put it to pratice and vidio your members and come back and compair.
+
the masters you speak of do during the winter and spring months have a different show/seminar every week all across the country. My home town has 4 sprotsmans shows between jan and march. one is going on right now. you would have a hard time compeating in paying thier wages.
=
and yet there is another hand, many of these guys have their own camps that have do repreives during the summer and a club could take advantage of that for far less than hireing him for an hour or two.
so unless you have a bankroll to back up such an endevor I would suggest you find a couple more anglers who would not mind or would like to take the time to share what they know. start small and work up.
the one thing you missed on is there are by far more anglers who would love to learn how to present thier baits, learn the timing of how to set a hook. We as seasoned anglers know different fish hit differently. we know what they like, we even know when it is time to change up and addapt to species changes in habbits.
so I think if you traget a specified audiance even youth groups, they could use a good man to teach them the differacne between a fast and slow action rod and how to tie a snell and polimer knot. and if you had another member who knows his way around a fly rod and can tie a halfway deacent fly then I beleive you can put a group to gether.
there is always an option of doing a local tv series for your local sportsmans channel. You deffenantly want several anglers in your group who have the skills needed to cover different species and methods of fishing.
Ya, I suffer from the same delusions, I teach youth anglers the fine arts of angling in seminars and special youth fishing events targeted in giving youths the feal good fealing about going fishing.
what you are looking to do requires a lot of orginization and deap pockets filled to the brim with fish backs. It can be done, Profitably? maybe if you take it on the road to large audiences.
but emagine having a half dozen anglers in a club and all six of you go out and buy a different lure and every meeting you pass the lure you bought to the angler on the right untill it goes all the way around, you would have someting to discuss at every meeting. were you able to master the lure, did it bomb out on you, how did you present it. what structure and depths did you work it. and so on.... the more members you have in your club the more info you will be able to share.
[signature]