Our school finally started a bass fishing team this year. We did 3 fall tournaments, and our first Spring tournament is the first weekend in Feb. Anyone else got a kid doing ASABFA? We are loving it so far! Pic is from his very first tournament back in October. An early morning on Lake Martin.
ETA: This kid lives and breathes bass fishing.


gif upload

My son fished it. I have a major issue with them. It is not realistic of what is real world. Yea, they can possibly get a scholarship. But, there is no money handed out at the tx and that is not real world experience. You spend hundreds of dollars to fish these and get a plaque for winning? Yea it looks good, but is not real world experience.

My son has fished it the last couple of years he loves it and I like to spend time with him and captain the boat. He loves to fish and also loves getting out of school to prefish. We fish ABN and a local trail the local trail is a lot better the kids actually win good money with it.

I haven't paid out anything except the ASABFA membership fees. Fortunately, our school and sponsors have covered all other costs (which haven't been that expensive, that I have seen) for our jerseys, hoodies, tournament fees, and even our gas expenses for travel and boats on the water. We have enjoyed it. They gave out bags of merch and plaques at the fall tournaments and they do receive cash scholarships for top teams/boats. I am unfamiliar with all the bass fishing associations and our school is pretty new at this. We are learning and hopefully it continues to get better and better. We had just enough to sign up to make a team; 6 anglers, 3 boats and 3 boat captains.


Sounds like my son and husband. They love it. Our school excuses pre fish day, too. The boys love that. All the boats line up in front of the school early in the morning and all the other kids watch them load up and leave out for a weekend of fishing. I will look up the ABN and check that out. Thanks.

I have fished with this organization for 3 years now, 2 years with my son and 1 as a captain for 2 kids that needed a captain. Overall a good experience, with safety of the student anglers and boat captains first and foremost. At the local level school teams secure their funding as they choose. Our anglers seek sponsorships from businesses and are responsible for $600.00 each. If they can not raise the sponsorship goal they pay the balance out of pocket. This money is put towards spring entry fees and lodging for the tournaments. The fall entry fees for district competition is paid by the anglers. We competed in the 3 River throwdown for the fall. Money was awarded for the top 3 schools at the end of the fall season. Our school put that money towards the spring expenses as well. As with any organization improvements can be made, if you have suggestions make them to ASABFA. They seem like a reasonable bunch to me.

As for winning spring tournament money. I don't know if that is a possibility. I can't think of any other high school sport that wins money.

We fish the Airport Highschool Trail. They pay more spots and kids love money. LOL They also give out prizes to captains and kids. My Daughter and Son both are fishing. Great memories are made on the water.

Chad Burnette

I run the airport marine high school trail like said above if anyone wants any information on an awesome trail with big money pay outs let me know. The next tournament is January 22 on Jordan

I captain a couple of kids. We have fished in the asabfa the last 3 years. The boys seem to enjoy it pretty well.

Thanks for the info.


My husband captains, too. He really enjoys it. Our boys are loving it and learning. All schools should offer this if they have interest for it. It took us a couple years to get it going and I am pretty sure it's here to stay at our school.

I hope everyone can try to come out January 22 after that it on to guntersville for a 2 day tournament

My son and daughter will fish Jordan and Guntersville. Daughter been fishing but son’s first tournament will be Jordan. My schedule messes with tournament schedule too much. I hope we can fish 4 tournaments to fish the classic. I’ll have to miss work to qualify

Chad

I hope my grandson’s high school has a team by the time he gets there. I would love to captain him.

A lot of grandfathers are out there doing it. I think we fished with 108 other boats last tournament and there were a lot of Pawpaw's out there.

If no money is handed out, and there are entry fees for the tournament, who is getting all the money?

They give scholarships at the end of the year. Plaques and bags of merch (there was good stuff in the bags) are given out to the top 10.

They give scholarship money to tournament winners as well as academic scholarship money to qualifying graduating seniors. My son was a lazy dumb dumb and did not apply last year. He would have certainly received money, graduated 5th in his class and 33 on the ACT. The coach at the high school said they did not receive very many applications and were giving scholarship money to students that normally wouldn't receive the money. One of the few times I have been livid with that kid......

David

My son has been on our school team for 5 years. I'm also a fishing captain for our team.

Rookie team this year with a couple of 8th graders. 3 people in a boat that had 0 experience of any kind in tourneys was fun the first time out on Weiss. I will say I much preferred the BassNation blast offs to ASABFA, as I'm much more into fishing than boat racing.

All my tournaments are paid day of the tournament $90 to enter first is usually about $4300 based on number of boats

My husband and son went to Lake Martin this weekend to pre fish for our upcoming tournament and my son caught 13 bass near Kowliga. My son's fishing buddy caught several, too and so did my husband although Captains are not allowed to fish during tournaments. Our next tournament will be at Lake Martin the first weekend of Feb, I believe. I don't go to blast offs, but I do watch it on their livestream, from a warm bed, lol. I show up for weigh in.