ORGANISING A MICHIGAN BASS COUNSEL

[Skip Johnson]

With so many peaple and agencies trying to take away our fishing priviliges across the country I think Michigan needs to create the MICHIGAN COUNSEL OF BASS CLUBS it worked in sandiego and it can work here!

Let me tell you the basics of how it works

Lets just say we have 10 organised clubs and organisations in michigan and each has a president and vice president(directer/co directer) and the counsel has monthly or bi monthly meetings to keep all the directers informed of what they know and can take it back to each club.

there are no dues
there is a top 5 from each club year end championship(50 boats) fishing for trophys only, 1st 2nd and 3rd at the end of the year.

Its very fun to see what club out fishes the others.

heres where it gets good and all the power of the BASS COUNSEL comes from.

1. You have annual media tournaments!
2. Take a youth fishing day!
3. Youth fishing tournaments!
4. food drives
The Media tournaments had become a big hit, theyre team tournaments that you take journalists from both the local newspapers and the local tv news and you fish for tropyhys bragging rights and fun but in doing so they write and broadcast about theyre experience!

Then when we put on charity youth events and we announce it to our media contacts who want to stay on our good side becouse they want to fish the next media event we get free coverage and we get to be a houshold name with peaple that dont know the difference between a walleye or a BASS.

If this is handled properly we could become very influintial in the politics of DNR and other agencies and raise our membership numbers!

It would take a couple years to get the media attendance to desired levels but there is sports writers and others that do fish and they go back to theyre office and tell others so after a couple years you end up with peaple that dont fish actualy fishing(word of mouth)

I personely would volunteer my time boat and tackle for these 3 annual events and bring a couple cans of food to each tournament so would anybody else be interested??

[McCarter]

You know im in Skipper.  Just as long as my boat is in working order. 

McCarter himself

[fishon1219]

Skip,
In the south east Michigan area there is something that already exists that is kinda like what you are describing. It is called the MBI. This was organized back in the early 80's to determine which club in south east Michigan had the best fisherman. It was limited to 8 clubs and each club was allowed to send 4 boats to the tournament. This is still on going and it really only exists for bragging rights and the trophy. There is no philanthropic premise to it like you are describing above it is just for bragging rights.
If you are serious about this kind of organization I would really like to help you out as a co-director type of position. I am really busy with other things so I would not be able to give the endeavour the time it would deserve in the lead role, but I could really help out in a VP type position.

[McCarter]

Skip,
In the south east Michigan area there is something that already exists that is kinda like what you are describing. It is called the MBI. This was organized back in the early 80's to determine which club in south east Michigan had the best fisherman. It was limited to 8 clubs and each club was allowed to send 4 boats to the tournament. This is still on going and it really only exists for bragging rights and the trophy. There is no philanthropic premise to it like you are describing above it is just for bragging rights.
If you are serious about this kind of organization I would really like to help you out as a co-director type of position. I am really busy with other things so I would not be able to give the endeavour the time it would deserve in the lead role, but I could really help out in a VP type position.

Where the heck did those 2 come from?  You go and get smart of me, boy?  We dont take kindly to smart folk round here.  Now i have to find a dictionary and a thesaurus.  What has become of this site, when i guy cant even get through a simple post without having brain meltdown?!?!?

McCarter himself

[dartag]

 " philanthropic "   whew that is a big word.    i'm with PB you must be studying in your spare time.

now i know why Lola likes you.

[Cheetam]

philanthropic premise

Isn't that something that cavemen lived in?

[joshimoto son]

heres where it gets good and all the power of the BASS COUNSEL comes from.

1. You have annual media tournaments!
2. Take a youth fishing day!
3. Youth fishing tournaments!
4. food drives
The Media tournaments had become a big hit, theyre team tournaments that you take journalists from both the local newspapers and the local tv news and you fish for tropyhys bragging rights and fun but in doing so they write and broadcast about theyre experience!

Then when we put on charity youth events and we announce it to our media contacts who want to stay on our good side becouse they want to fish the next media event we get free coverage and we get to be a houshold name with peaple that dont know the difference between a walleye or a BASS.

If this is handled properly we could become very influintial in the politics of DNR and other agencies and raise our membership numbers!

I like it Skip!
I feel that the current organizations that are in place are doing a good job of keeping a presence in the fishing community, but IMO... I do not see a strong emphasis on making themselves known in the community as a whole.

I like the idea of forming an organization that puts that goal first.

I like it because I also think it would give members a sense of being part of something that is their own, and not driven by Big Brother (FLW/BASS).

I like the name. The name tells people that we are here for the right reasons. Conservation, youth envolvment and community. Not corporate big names like Wal-Mart and ESPN.

I also think it would help support some of the individuals representing the bass fishing community that are out there doing most of the work for us. Mr. Kimmel being the first one coming to mind.

I am willing to help... I am part of one of the oldest clubs in Michigan, we have the biggest youth club in Michigan, we even have our own Scholarship Fund to support "local" kids in our community. I can see if they would be willing to participate.

I know that one of our local morning DJ's is a very big outdoorsman... I would be willing to contact him to see if he would be interested in participating in a media event and broadcasting it on the radio.

"Big Picture" thinking!!! Nice post CNB.

Let me know what I can do.

joshimoto son

[Skip Johnson]

Kev
ya been out gettin edumacated behind our backs or what!

As far as a director co director thing for the BASS COUNSEL it probobly wouldnt work like that its more of lets say a round table where every body is equal, it would be led and attended by and only the directors of each club(they represent us) where they share info and vote on proposals that way we all can give our directer our input or even club votes he can take that info to the table and keep other clubs informed.

The nice thing about this would be that all the participating clubs would become closer and plan tournaments around each others, it makes a much friendlier affiliation with other clubs and a fun best of the best tourney at the end of the year.

The only obligation we as fisherman would have is to attend between 1 to 3 of these charity events with our boat tackle and smiles! hey its just another day of fishing its what we love to do and we as sportsman should be willing to take a day or 2 a year to give something back.

The obligation the directers would have is to participate in meetings either in person or through yahoo chat or both, if theres no major topic it will be very short and sweet and its just a matter of making dates for such events to take place and appointing a couple peaple to contact media and youth groups to get participation and when an important issue does come up the counsel is formed organised and ready to share info about an issue and bringing the info back to us as individuals so we all know what the right and left hand is doing.

What needs to be known is that if an unfair change is proposed or happens we do not have community support or media exposure!

Lets say that the proposed wisconsin rule that basicaly destroys tournament Bass fishing in the summer was to be proposed here would we have community support do you realy think that fisherman out number tree hugging peaple if so your wrong but if half of those tree huggers knew by way of media exposure that we are involved in helping the community they wouldnt think that we are thrashing the invironment like peta and others spends so much time and money telling them that we are.

Hey Guys Im going to be honest with ya, Id rather pretend like things cant be taken away from me and just live my life day to day
its so much easier in the short term but the dove ban is just the beginning and if you have read the peta sponsered google adds about fishing hurts youd know theyre coming after fishing and they will hit tournament fishing first!

PETA is very powerfull and right now we are weak, we can only be strong if were organised and ready or they will run right over us and its much harder to fight new laws than attempts to change old laws.

[djkimmel]

This is a really great idea.

[fishon1219]

" philanthropic "   whew that is a big word.    i'm with PB you must be studying in your spare time.

now i know why Lola likes you.

I am not just another pretty face. I want people to love me for my mind not my body.
Jeff, I think you meant the paleozoic era. I think cavemen were walking around then.

[McCarter]

[/quote]
Jeff, I think you meant the paleozoic era. I think cavemen were walking around then.
[/quote]

Just knock it off right now.  I am losing respect for you by the minute.

McCarter himself

[MaizeNBlue]

I knew that word of the day toilet paper would pay off for him someday. 

[Team houston]

That right there is funny.  By the way I think it is a good idea also and am willing to do my part.