Invitation to all Missouri high schools

The Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) made a great call in allowing all Missouri high schools to enter the Missouri Fall Classic bass tournament here at Lake of the Ozarks Oct. 26 whether or not the schools are signed up with the MSHSAA program.  It was agonizing to get those Facebook messages from students and parents who wanted to participate in the tournament but they were disappointed that they might miss out because their school wasn’t signed up with MSHSAA.   I was glad to see that MSHSAA is giving those students a chance to fish if they can find a coach, some teammates and boat captains.

MSHSAA’s decision shows that the state association is committed to helping the bass fishing activity grow so it will reach the 50-school mark needed for MSHSAA to start holding a state series culminating in a state championship.  Hopefully these kids who will be fishing with an unofficial school team will have a great experience in the tournament and will take back to their school administrators several photos and testimonials from parents on how great an event it was for the kids.  

We saw a great upsurge in interest for high school bass fishing after the Bass Pro Shops Open Championship of High School Fishing at Table Rock in June and hopefully since the fall event will be held in a central location of the state it will attract more teams from schools in Kansas City and St. Louis along with the Lake of the Ozarks area schools.

I also hope the schools that competed in the Bass Pro Shops event will also come up to show off their great programs. I was really impressed by how well organized and dedicated those schools were to the bass fishing program.  They are shining examples of what we hope to accomplish throughout the rest of the state and I consider those high school teams the ambassadors of this program.

There are still some details to work on for the Fall Classic but hopefully those will be ironed out in the next couple of weeks.  Even though schools not signed up with the MSHSAA program will be allowed to send teams to compete in the Fall Classic, the teams will have to follow all MSHSAA requirements. To see a list of the MSHAA requirements visit https://www.mshsaa.org/Activities/Info/BassFishing.aspx and click on Proposed Insurance Guidelines for Bass Fishing.

Take the initiative to start a high school bass club

I’ve never been very enthusiastic about blogging because I never could figure out what to write about and the pay was pretty poor. So rather than write about my fishing exploits (a boring subject), I decided to devote this blog to my thoughts about the high school bass fishing movement. So here goes. First of all, I didn’t realize the decline in our youth’s interest in fishing until I started pushing for the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s bass fishing activity. It seems like there is a lot of interest in fishing among the kids in the Table Rock area, but it seems to be lacking in other parts of the states even in the rural areas. I can understand in the suburban areas a lack of high school youths who have an interest in joining a school bass club, but what is up with the lack of schools around the other lakes throughout the state that haven’t signed up for the MSHSAA program? School administrators know about the MSHSAA bass fishing activity because more than 200 of the schools voted for it to be a MSHSAA activity last year. Yet there are still less than 50 schools that have signed up for the activity. However, we shouldn’t expect the school administrators to promote this activity because they probably already have their hands full with all the other sports and activities going on at their schools. In some rare instances you will find teachers like Jim Huson at Republic High School who pushed hard to get his school’s bass club started but in most cases it is really up to the students and parents to push for a bass club at their school. In many of the stories I have written about high school fishing, the central figure in getting a bass club started at a high school was a determined student—or a couple of students—who recruited some fishing buddies and found a teacher willing to supervise their group. So if students want to start fishing clubs in their school, they should take the initiative and either ask the school for permission to circulate a sign-up sheet for prospective members or just start asking classmates if they have any interest in joining a fishing club. Even if they find only two or three kids that is enough to start a club and if they show a willingness to teach others how to fish, they can build up their club’s numbers. They can start holding unofficial meetings off campus and teach the newcomers some of the basics of fishing. A parent, an adult member of a bass club or an experienced adult bass angler could conduct the meetings until the “unofficial” club can find a teacher who might be interested in supervising and initiating the process of getting the club approved by the school. I occasionally hear some students and parents say their school will never allow them to start up a fishing club. Just remember though that there is an annual turnover in school staffs, so there is always a chance that a new school administrator with an open mind about expanding school activities might come on board.