High School Student Anglers need your Support and Help

Wiplash · Post by **Wiplash** » Sat Oct 12, 2019 7:19 pm

Hey guys looking for some help and support for High School Student Anglers. It took 6 years for Deer Valley to get a High School Fishing Team. The school was able to purchase a bass boat to support the tournament. This past year a Team from deer Valley went to FLW Nationals and placed in the Top 5. They received a scholarship. You would think that the school district would want to back this and push this sport even more. This year there is some new personnel within the school and some new personnel in the Antioch School District. They have shut this down and had to get rid of the boat do to liability issues. No other reasons were made and basically the easiest way was to get rid of the boat and not recognize this to be a sport. So not the kids that are fishing will just have the Jersey Representing the school. I am prepared to take this to the school district. I have gotten a lot of Replies from local to Pro Anglers asking what they can do. I have gotten 10 Anglers so far to represent these students and show their support to take this matter to the school board. This has been a battle with some of the Brentwood schools. We are trying to get this recognized as a sport and have it lettered for a Letterman Jacket. More info will be posted. Please let me know if you are willing to help and show your support. Thank you.
Phil Lago

aaafffqqq · Post by **aaafffqqq** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 5:02 pm

This is terrible news Phil. A lot of the best high school sticks come from the Delta schools. Our school treats the team well but we never tried to qualify as a sport. We are a club. They allow us the use of a classroom for after school rod building and repair-but they drew the line at melting lead for making drop shot weights. We do get some yearbook space but all of our financial support comes form local merchants. Dobyns, Abu Garcia, Lews, River2Sea and others work hard to make fishing more affordable for our guys as well.

If you can't get past the school district red tape (try the school board) you may have to form a separate club or move your guys into one of the clubs down that way. Our boaters carry liability insurance and I am sure you know the FLW Student Angler Federation has insurance as well. So not sure what the liability problem could be. Your guys may also be able to fish for another school. We had two kids from another school fish with us for a couple seasons.

Building and maintaining a high school bass team requires amazing effort by all involved. Lining up boaters who can go regularly is the hardest part but down your way a lot of guys have bass boats. Congrats to your guys who did so well and congrats on having a school boat, that was amazing! Not sure what the problem with the school is. We use bass fishing, like any other sport, to keep the kids grades up. One down side for your school having their anglers fish for an outside club or another school is the administrators cannot use grades as a requirement for guys to fish. They lose all control.

I wish you all the best on this, you are doing a good thing. Brentwood is over 100 miles from our school but let me know if there is something I can do to help.

Ed H,
Golden Sierra HS Bass Masters

Wiplash · Post by **Wiplash** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:00 am

Ed

Thank you for the info and support. I plan on talking with the school and the school board soon. I will stay on top of this and at least I can hopefully keep it as a club. I think that is awesome. Some of the schools are starting a club. I plan on seeing if we have a staff member that is willing to at least get a club going in each of the schools.

Phil