Fox News picked up a story about the South Carolina folks trying to get High School Bass Fishing sanctioned as a sport, following in the footsteps of other states like Illinois and Kentucky. They followed that up with a national opinion poll on whether you think Bass Fishing should be sanctioned as a sport.
Many of us in the fishing industry feel high school fishing is the next bastion of opportunity in fishing. So we were a bit disappointed with the condescending nature of the selected responses in Fox News opinion poll. All three choices make it sound like fishing isn’t a legit activity. The best choice as an option would have been, It’s a great idea and requires skill and endurance to be good at it.
Most folks will compare fishing to Football, Basketball and Baseball in terms of varsity sports. The truth is as a participation sport, fishing is enjoyed by more people than all three sports combined. Go ahead and throw tennis and golf in there while you’re at. More folks fish than do any of those other activities. So it only makes sense to those of us who’ve grown up in the outdoors to make such a popular sport a sanctioned sport. We also feel there are wholesome and intrinsic values garnered from establishing fishing programs in high schools as opposed to other sports in terms of conservation and stewardship of fisheries and the outdoors in general.
Check out the article, video and opinion poll on Fox News Website today.
To read the article and see the video, click here.
To vote on the opinion poll, click here.
