College Bass Fishing

[Briar Morrow]

Hi I am trying to start a college bass fishing team. I have already got the ball rolling I talked to the dean and he loved the Idea, But id like a little more info on it like what tournment series do I need to try and fish I know flw but they only have a couple of tournments a year and today i seen something about the ASA any and all input will be greatly appericated.

[NCLifetimer]

FLW, Boat US and BASS college series(called carhartt(sp?)) are the main ones and only one's i know of for college anglers.

FLW is an easy process to start. Go to the college part of their website, www.collegefishing.com and look under the tournament drop down. FLW has 4 qualifiers per region. that means 8 people from you're school are guaranteed to compete in regional qualifiers. Other teams from your school can be put on a wait list, but the tournaments always fill up. If you're in top 5 for each regional, you go to regional championships. top 5 from the five(or maybe its only 4 regions) regional championships go on to the national championship. if a team from a school got 1st place in regional qualifiers, regional championship and then won nationals, they would be looking at a winning of over 150,000 and two boats valued at around 20k each.

Boat US has one big tournament for all colleges nationally I believe, and 2 teams from each school can go to that. No qualifier that i know of, besides just signing up.

BASS is a little different. They have opens. As long as 2 people from you're school participate(and i think place with the top 50 or somethings) then you're school is then eligible to send two people to the BASS national championship. They don't have to be the two people who went to the open, but that would be fair.

My advice, establish a team at your school, then write up a club constitution. Make up a fair point system to determine who gets to go fish the above 3 tournaments. The above 3 tournaments also have payouts, so determine how much of the money goes to the school. Then to the club, and the anglers. I personally believe NC State has a good club setup. Go to their site, google "BassPack", and take a look at the constitution. I think it will prove as a good guideline. I stress the constitution because when you add tournaments with payout into the equations, things can get messy...

Individual schools throughout the year, atleast in my area, hold Opens where they invite others schools to compete on a single lake for "fun" for a lack of a better phrase. They don't lead to anything else, but its a good way to compete against others schools and their is usual some kind of pay out, whether in sponsorship gear or money.

Good luck, if you have any other questions shoot me a PM.

[Briar Morrow]

thanks for the help and i will

[aumdb487]

Look up Auburn University Bass Club. I see you are in Arkansas you might be interested in fishing the Southern Collegiate Bass series.

[bowfish12]

Might want to have something written up with your school to make sure all winnings are split between school and club like they should be. This is a major problem at my school and a few other schools. You might want to check up on the bylaws that your school has written for all clubs associated with the school.

Just to give you an idea of what is going on here. We receive no funding from the school b/c of the way the bylaws are written. We aren't allowed to hold any fundraising events for the purpose of covering expenses b/c they say it could "conflict" with their bass tourney for the athletic department, even though it would be held at a different time of the year.

And finally, two anglers came in second at an FLW qualifier two years ago, FLW writes the check to the school to be distributed between the school and club, and the school said thanks for the money but you aren't getting any. This was eventually sorted out after a few months of whining and it cost the school more than what they would have had to give the club if they would have just done it in the first place.

These are few problems that we have going on right now. I strongly suggest getting an advisor (you will probably have to have one to form a club) that is committed to help.