Post by jkaszuba on Sept 10, 2012 12:22:36 GMT -5
Hey guys,
My name is Justin Kaszuba and I am the Secretary of the club. My main job is to keep the meeting notes for those who are unable to attend the monthly general meetings. If you guys are ever unclear of something or would like something elaborated on please do not hesitate to ask!
We will have general meetings once a month that are meant to educate our members on different aspects of fishing, to get together as a club and to keep everyone updated on the events of the club. Our club is made up of two sides, one side that is devoted to fun fishing and one that is devoted to competitive fishing. We do not strictly bass fish and we do our best to get out and fish for other species. In addition we also have numerous social events such as club dinners, bar crawls, camping trips to name a few. We also have executive board meetings every week at Geovantis (4th and green). These meetings are open to everybody and are a great way to get more involved with the club and to just hang out.
The club itself was founded in 2001 and we have grown a lot over the last couple of years. We have on average 30-40 members and have been growing every year. As a team we are tied for the most wins in the Big 10 Classic Tournament held every fall, last winning two years ago.
We are also one of the few clubs in the country to have club boats available to the members. In 2006 Professor Kessler donated two boats, a 1979 Ranger I/O fish and ski boat and a 1976 Quachita jon boat. The boats allow us to give our members the experience of fishing out of boats.
We do our best to get out and “fun fish” multiple times a week where we go out and fish from shore. There are several ponds on campus, Crystal Lake (by Carle Hospital) and Kaufman Lake (On Springfield Ave, by HWY 72) to name a couple. We also have a couple of club boats as well as members who have their own boats and will go out to one of the lakes that are not too far from campus (Clinton lake is 45 minutes away, Lake Shelbyville is an hour and a half and Newton is 2 and a half hours away). If you ever want to fish, the message board is used to coordinate these trips. Members will post up when they are going fishing and you can plan with them. A lot of our more senior members have cars that can help you and your gear to the lake. If you want to go fishing and no one has posted anything feel free to post up and almost always you will find someone to go out with you.
Tournament Fishing:
Big 10 Classic: The Big 10 Classic, is an annual fall tournament that is limited to only the Big 10 schools. This is a team tournament where the only prize is a trophy and bragging rights. We are able to take up to 5 two-man teams, with the top three weights going towards our total. This year’s tournament is on the Madison Chain on the weekend of September 30th, and currently there are 4 spots open to new members to fish.
FLW College Series: There are four tournaments every year through this circuit. This series is unique is because it is the only series we fish where we do not need to bring a boat to fish. They pair us with a volunteer pro fisherman for the tournament. There are four tournaments through this series every year, that are called qualifiers. If we get the top 5 in one of these tournaments we qualify for the regional (something we have never done) and then get the opportunity to fish the regional and if we place well enough there we qualify for the national championship. Prizes through this series include money and if we were to win a regional and the national championship a fully rigged bass boat. We get out to a lot of great lakes for these tournaments, last year we fished Table Rock Lake, Kentucky lake, Lake Shelbyville and the Mississippi River up at La Crosse Wisconsin
Boat US Series: The Boat US series offers numerous tournaments, both student run and professionally run by them across the country. The biggest events in this series are the National Championship and the Pepsi Open. The Championship is a 200 boat tournament, easily the biggest in the country every year. For the next 5 years this tournament will be held on Lake Pickwick in Florence Alabama, which is an awesome fishery and a great area to have a tournament. The Pepsi Open is annually held on Kentucky Lake in Paris Tennessee, and this tournament is unique because it is a team tournament. Every two boats get paired up and bring in their best three fish to weigh in against everyone else. This is a series where we have to supply our own boats, and we can usually get 2-3 boats for each tournament without a problem.
College Bass: This is a circuit that we have just gotten re-involved with, and we had a lot of fun with it this year. This circuit is ran by BASS, the same organization that hosts the pro tournaments. They offer a 4 super regional’s in each major region of the country in the spring, and the top 50% of the field qualifies for the National Championship in July. This year the regional we fished was up in La Crosse Wisconsin on the Mississippi River, and the National Championship was down in Arkansas. For the regional we are allowed to enter as many boats as we want, but only one of them qualifies for the National Championship. This past year we had two teams qualify for the National Championship.
Point System: Our club operates on a point system that helps dictate who gets to fish the tournaments. We offer points for general meetings, club events and paper tournaments. Paper t’s are open to everyone and although they are “tournaments” they are not very serious and we encourage everyone to come out. At these tournaments those with less experience can learn a lot from the more experienced members, and you get 15 points for showing up regardless if you catch a fish. We also give out 10 points for every general meeting and 5 points for club events.
Sponsors: To be able to take qualify for our sponsors incentives, you have to be an active member in our club. To be an active member you need to be a paid member, and will need to have come to three general meetings and then three club events (paper tournaments, social events etc).
Columbia: Columbia is our longest running sponsor, and they have been awesome for us over the years. They have changed their policies on sponsoring College teams lately, but we still get a ton of support from them and a hefty discount on their products.
Lake Fork Trophy Lures: Lake Fork Trophy Lures are a plastic company that is based out of Texas. They make awesome soft plastic baits that are bass killers. In addition they are also great supporters of the club, they donated a lot of gear to our High School Tournament, and they give us a great discount on all of their products. The key to their products is that they are unique in design and something you will not see anywhere else.
Dobyns Rod: Dobyns rods is a manufacturer of some of the best rods on the market, with superior dependability and feel. Dobyns gives us a lot of support in any way they can from good discounts on their products to donations for our club events.
Numa Sport Optics: Numa is one of our newest sponsors and a company that we are very excited to be working with them. They offer us very reasonably priced sunglasses that are indestructible (there are videos online of their sunglasses being run over by a truck). These sunglasses are designed especially for fishermen which make them great for being on the water.
Advantage Bait Company: Advantage Bait Company is a relatively new company that is out of Elk Grove Illinois. We have been with them from the beginning, being one of the first members of their pro staff. They produce high company spinnerbaits that feature blades that are completely different than the blades seen on any other spinnerbait out there.
Custom Cast Lures: Custom Cast Lures is a local company that makes great jigs and shakey heads. The owner of this company actually is a University employee and he is a great supporter of the club as well. He helps us out with repairs, things we need for the boats and information.
Tacklewarehouse: Tacklewarehouse is essentially Bass Pro Shops online. They have anything you could ever think about wanting for bass fishing and they give us a great discount on everything and have some of the best customer service in the industry.
Rod Glove: Another one of our new sponsors, Rod Glove produces some of the best products on the market that help protect rods and reels when in the boat and in the back of the truck. We are excited to work with them this year.
Lews: Another one of our new sponsorships, Lews makes very high quality rods and reels and they have just gotten into College fishing. We are excited to work more closely with them and feel that they will be great supporters of the club.
Partnerships:
CU-Bass Club: The Champaign Urbana Bass Club is a local club for the area that has been very supportive of our club in the past. We have members who are a part of their club and some who go to their meetings to talk fishing. They are great guys who can teach all of us a lot about fishing, so we recommend going to one of their meetings to check them out.
CU Park District: We have recently started working with them and we are excited to continue this relationship. It is a way for us to give back to the community and get some of our volunteer hours in a fun way. Last spring we worked with the club to take some of their members with special needs fishing.
Fundraising: We do numerous fundraising activities throughout the year to raise money for the club that can eventually help take some of the burden off of members who travel to tournaments, as well as prizes for tournaments and other club events.
High School Tournament: This spring we held our first annual High School Open tournament out on Clinton Lake where we had 50 teams from all over the state participate. We had a lot of positive feedback and we are definitely looking forward to doing this again in the spring.
Fundraising Tournament: For the last three years we have held an open fundraising tournament on Lake Shelbyville. We allow anybody who wants to come out and support us to fish this tournament and we take some money for the club and give the rest back out as prizes.
We also run some smaller fundraisers throughout the years such as t-shirt sales, raffles etc.
Membership: We do have membership dues for anybody wishing to become a full member, but we are offering something new this year: a split membership for those just wanting to be in the club and for those who want to be on the team. The dues are $30 for club members and $50 for team members. Money raised from dues goes towards boat insurance, club events and member reimbursements for travel. In order to become a full active member and be available to use the discounts that our club sponsors give us you must be a paid member.
That is all of the information I have for you guys. On a closing note, I really encourage those who enjoy fishing of all levels and species to come out and try the club out. We may come off as being very serious but the club is very laid back most of the time. The club will be as serious as you want to make it. We get out fishing as a group as much as we possibly can while not failing out of school and we are more than willing to teach anyone everything we know.
If you guys have any questions please feel free to ask below, and I hope to see you guys out on the water!
My name is Justin Kaszuba and I am the Secretary of the club. My main job is to keep the meeting notes for those who are unable to attend the monthly general meetings. If you guys are ever unclear of something or would like something elaborated on please do not hesitate to ask!
We will have general meetings once a month that are meant to educate our members on different aspects of fishing, to get together as a club and to keep everyone updated on the events of the club. Our club is made up of two sides, one side that is devoted to fun fishing and one that is devoted to competitive fishing. We do not strictly bass fish and we do our best to get out and fish for other species. In addition we also have numerous social events such as club dinners, bar crawls, camping trips to name a few. We also have executive board meetings every week at Geovantis (4th and green). These meetings are open to everybody and are a great way to get more involved with the club and to just hang out.
The club itself was founded in 2001 and we have grown a lot over the last couple of years. We have on average 30-40 members and have been growing every year. As a team we are tied for the most wins in the Big 10 Classic Tournament held every fall, last winning two years ago.
We are also one of the few clubs in the country to have club boats available to the members. In 2006 Professor Kessler donated two boats, a 1979 Ranger I/O fish and ski boat and a 1976 Quachita jon boat. The boats allow us to give our members the experience of fishing out of boats.
We do our best to get out and “fun fish” multiple times a week where we go out and fish from shore. There are several ponds on campus, Crystal Lake (by Carle Hospital) and Kaufman Lake (On Springfield Ave, by HWY 72) to name a couple. We also have a couple of club boats as well as members who have their own boats and will go out to one of the lakes that are not too far from campus (Clinton lake is 45 minutes away, Lake Shelbyville is an hour and a half and Newton is 2 and a half hours away). If you ever want to fish, the message board is used to coordinate these trips. Members will post up when they are going fishing and you can plan with them. A lot of our more senior members have cars that can help you and your gear to the lake. If you want to go fishing and no one has posted anything feel free to post up and almost always you will find someone to go out with you.
Tournament Fishing:
Big 10 Classic: The Big 10 Classic, is an annual fall tournament that is limited to only the Big 10 schools. This is a team tournament where the only prize is a trophy and bragging rights. We are able to take up to 5 two-man teams, with the top three weights going towards our total. This year’s tournament is on the Madison Chain on the weekend of September 30th, and currently there are 4 spots open to new members to fish.
FLW College Series: There are four tournaments every year through this circuit. This series is unique is because it is the only series we fish where we do not need to bring a boat to fish. They pair us with a volunteer pro fisherman for the tournament. There are four tournaments through this series every year, that are called qualifiers. If we get the top 5 in one of these tournaments we qualify for the regional (something we have never done) and then get the opportunity to fish the regional and if we place well enough there we qualify for the national championship. Prizes through this series include money and if we were to win a regional and the national championship a fully rigged bass boat. We get out to a lot of great lakes for these tournaments, last year we fished Table Rock Lake, Kentucky lake, Lake Shelbyville and the Mississippi River up at La Crosse Wisconsin
Boat US Series: The Boat US series offers numerous tournaments, both student run and professionally run by them across the country. The biggest events in this series are the National Championship and the Pepsi Open. The Championship is a 200 boat tournament, easily the biggest in the country every year. For the next 5 years this tournament will be held on Lake Pickwick in Florence Alabama, which is an awesome fishery and a great area to have a tournament. The Pepsi Open is annually held on Kentucky Lake in Paris Tennessee, and this tournament is unique because it is a team tournament. Every two boats get paired up and bring in their best three fish to weigh in against everyone else. This is a series where we have to supply our own boats, and we can usually get 2-3 boats for each tournament without a problem.
College Bass: This is a circuit that we have just gotten re-involved with, and we had a lot of fun with it this year. This circuit is ran by BASS, the same organization that hosts the pro tournaments. They offer a 4 super regional’s in each major region of the country in the spring, and the top 50% of the field qualifies for the National Championship in July. This year the regional we fished was up in La Crosse Wisconsin on the Mississippi River, and the National Championship was down in Arkansas. For the regional we are allowed to enter as many boats as we want, but only one of them qualifies for the National Championship. This past year we had two teams qualify for the National Championship.
Point System: Our club operates on a point system that helps dictate who gets to fish the tournaments. We offer points for general meetings, club events and paper tournaments. Paper t’s are open to everyone and although they are “tournaments” they are not very serious and we encourage everyone to come out. At these tournaments those with less experience can learn a lot from the more experienced members, and you get 15 points for showing up regardless if you catch a fish. We also give out 10 points for every general meeting and 5 points for club events.
Sponsors: To be able to take qualify for our sponsors incentives, you have to be an active member in our club. To be an active member you need to be a paid member, and will need to have come to three general meetings and then three club events (paper tournaments, social events etc).
Columbia: Columbia is our longest running sponsor, and they have been awesome for us over the years. They have changed their policies on sponsoring College teams lately, but we still get a ton of support from them and a hefty discount on their products.
Lake Fork Trophy Lures: Lake Fork Trophy Lures are a plastic company that is based out of Texas. They make awesome soft plastic baits that are bass killers. In addition they are also great supporters of the club, they donated a lot of gear to our High School Tournament, and they give us a great discount on all of their products. The key to their products is that they are unique in design and something you will not see anywhere else.
Dobyns Rod: Dobyns rods is a manufacturer of some of the best rods on the market, with superior dependability and feel. Dobyns gives us a lot of support in any way they can from good discounts on their products to donations for our club events.
Numa Sport Optics: Numa is one of our newest sponsors and a company that we are very excited to be working with them. They offer us very reasonably priced sunglasses that are indestructible (there are videos online of their sunglasses being run over by a truck). These sunglasses are designed especially for fishermen which make them great for being on the water.
Advantage Bait Company: Advantage Bait Company is a relatively new company that is out of Elk Grove Illinois. We have been with them from the beginning, being one of the first members of their pro staff. They produce high company spinnerbaits that feature blades that are completely different than the blades seen on any other spinnerbait out there.
Custom Cast Lures: Custom Cast Lures is a local company that makes great jigs and shakey heads. The owner of this company actually is a University employee and he is a great supporter of the club as well. He helps us out with repairs, things we need for the boats and information.
Tacklewarehouse: Tacklewarehouse is essentially Bass Pro Shops online. They have anything you could ever think about wanting for bass fishing and they give us a great discount on everything and have some of the best customer service in the industry.
Rod Glove: Another one of our new sponsors, Rod Glove produces some of the best products on the market that help protect rods and reels when in the boat and in the back of the truck. We are excited to work with them this year.
Lews: Another one of our new sponsorships, Lews makes very high quality rods and reels and they have just gotten into College fishing. We are excited to work more closely with them and feel that they will be great supporters of the club.
Partnerships:
CU-Bass Club: The Champaign Urbana Bass Club is a local club for the area that has been very supportive of our club in the past. We have members who are a part of their club and some who go to their meetings to talk fishing. They are great guys who can teach all of us a lot about fishing, so we recommend going to one of their meetings to check them out.
CU Park District: We have recently started working with them and we are excited to continue this relationship. It is a way for us to give back to the community and get some of our volunteer hours in a fun way. Last spring we worked with the club to take some of their members with special needs fishing.
Fundraising: We do numerous fundraising activities throughout the year to raise money for the club that can eventually help take some of the burden off of members who travel to tournaments, as well as prizes for tournaments and other club events.
High School Tournament: This spring we held our first annual High School Open tournament out on Clinton Lake where we had 50 teams from all over the state participate. We had a lot of positive feedback and we are definitely looking forward to doing this again in the spring.
Fundraising Tournament: For the last three years we have held an open fundraising tournament on Lake Shelbyville. We allow anybody who wants to come out and support us to fish this tournament and we take some money for the club and give the rest back out as prizes.
We also run some smaller fundraisers throughout the years such as t-shirt sales, raffles etc.
Membership: We do have membership dues for anybody wishing to become a full member, but we are offering something new this year: a split membership for those just wanting to be in the club and for those who want to be on the team. The dues are $30 for club members and $50 for team members. Money raised from dues goes towards boat insurance, club events and member reimbursements for travel. In order to become a full active member and be available to use the discounts that our club sponsors give us you must be a paid member.
That is all of the information I have for you guys. On a closing note, I really encourage those who enjoy fishing of all levels and species to come out and try the club out. We may come off as being very serious but the club is very laid back most of the time. The club will be as serious as you want to make it. We get out fishing as a group as much as we possibly can while not failing out of school and we are more than willing to teach anyone everything we know.
If you guys have any questions please feel free to ask below, and I hope to see you guys out on the water!