Myself and a co-worker currently fish with 2 different Bass clubs in Central Va. One is purely recreational, and the other is a Federation affiliated Club. Both clubs are awsome and have a great bunch of guys, but neither works very well for us. The Rec Club schedule conflicts with our work schedules 75% of the time (shift work), and the other is a Federation Club which requires additional fees which really serves little purpose (in my opinion) for the club or me, as I am not interested and do not have time for Federation tournaments, the 6 Man, etc.... Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the Fed, not that at all, it just does not work for me at this time and I can't see paying for it if not getting anything out of it....in addition the second club seems to be falling apart. 6 members showed for the last event and that looks like all we may have for the rest of the season...........yea - I'll make the 6 Man Team!
We are looking at the idea of starting a new club. Hopefully getting enough interest to hold a local get together tournement late this summer or fall to spark interest, and then kicking it off full time next year starting in March. We are hoping to find enough interest from retirees, shift workers, and self employeed business owners, to form a club with the early season and late season events (March - April and Sept - Oct )on Sundays, and events in the busy boating / jet skiing season (May - Aug) on Fridays to avoid the added recreational boat traffic. Of course anyone who could get a few Fridays off and is not an A-hole is welcome. All other tournys on Sundays, with maybe Sat in the fall. Looking to do something decent and well organized for 13 - 20 members with at least 3/4+ being boaters. Points system something like Nascar to track year end standings. Goals at this point are to just get a good group of people together to do a little competitive fishing in a well organized format. Individual formats with boaters and non boaters. This could be good "cheap" practice for those who fish other events or are in other clubs and just can't get enough. We have some ideas that seem pretty good to us, but all is up for consideration and discussion. We have already purchased some club scales.
Considering a schedule "something" like..... early March - Hotside, April - Potomac, May - Buggs, June - Chesdin, July - James, Aug - PMunkey, Sept - Chick, Oct - 2 day classic location????? Maybe even a night tourny at Chesdin 3- 10pm? Fees minimal to join club $30ish annually, tournament fees $20 - $25ish per person. All fees will of course go 100% to the club for payouts, and what ever else comes up. In the future we could even hold some sort of fund raiser to build up some cash to go towards the Classic year end tournement pot and also maybe do some different stuff like a small year end payout to last place for the year, the heaviest bag throughout the year not to claim a payout, big fish throughout the year not to win big fish, etc....just something a little different then the norm. I have a stew pot and a large BBQ cooker so a fund raiser could be easy!
Nothing is set in stone and we are still brain storming at this point, but do plan on making this happen. We are currently drafting a format and some rules as a starting point (everything will be up for vote when we get going, but just trying to get some stuff together to get started with).
We are from Chester and Enon and have a couple others already interested. We figured it be best to try and get this thing going now when interest maybe high and not wait until the dead of winter when bucket mouths are the last thing on many peoples minds. Some members from our other 2 clubs may also be interested in joining and participating in events that do not conflict with their primary clubs. If you are at all interested in learning more send me an IM or just post up here we will keep you posted. Comments or suggestions from anyone else are also welcomed.
Thanks and tight lines!
Modified by Hump at 6:43 PM 4/20/2009
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