What's the ideal number of members

[Admin]

I've seen several mentions of club size and the problems/benifits that either too many or not enough members can cause.

What would be the ideal number of members for a bass club?

Does your club limit the number of members?

Bruce

[Fraser Muir]

We have 40 to 50 members in our club at any one time....it's the largest in the OBF...although i think St. Kitts is close....I'd say it depends on the area....but when you have a population like Mississauga and surrounding area....how can you limit it....i'll say one thing...the bigger the clubs...the more the work...

F

[JP DeRose]

We've ( Simcoe CFT) found it very comfortable with 35 to 45 members. We don't limit the number in the club, we were once almost 60 members, we then slid to 30, and now are over forty, however the core members have been there since the inception of the club.

Some new members come with unrealistic expectations from a bass club, thinking that it's a guarantee to the big show, when really it's all about making some new friends with common interests and getting out with the boys every so often.

It's funny because it seems like I have 2 distinct group of friends, those who fish and happen to be from the club, and those who don't fish, but I've known for a really long time and our common interests don't involve driving down a lake at 50, 60 or 70 mph.

The only thing that we always need is new members who are non-boaters, because after a year, they always end up buying a boat

I guess that shouldn't be a selling point to the wife if you want to join

JP

[MichaelVandenberg]

For the 4 years that I have fished in tournaments the one thing I noticed is the launch facilities. If the launch can not support the number of members getting the boats in and out of the water will take a long time.

I would really like to go see one of these tourney's in the states where they have 175 teams.

Cheers,

Mike

[Tom Chopin]

You have to see the ramps in the states. The Buffalo smallboat launch has 6 ramps in and 6 ramps out and a shuttle service from the parking lot back to the ramps. In the morning that basically means you have 12 ramps to put in on because there is no one around. In the afternoon you get a lot more pleasure boaters but even if they tie up 4 ramps there is still lots of room to manouver. The sturgeon point launch has 3 or 4 ramps as does the Dunkirk launch. Fort Niagara 4 ramps on the lower river. Much better facilities than we have here for the most part.
As far as club size, I think you need 30 to 50 people to be able to get 20 people out to the tournaments(10 boats) to make it worth while. Getting participation out of the members that you have is the toughest part. Some guys just want to join a club to sip a few pops and chat about fishing while others are at every club event and tournament. At our club(niagara) we have been as high as 45 and presently sit at about 35. We have had turn over but there is a core that remains constant. We seem to have the problem of not enough non-boaters so we have few guys that go both ways(boater or non-boater). As was said previously guys transition to boaters usually within a year or two, so we need a constant flow of new non-boaters. Politics for the most part have been non-existent in our club as we have a great bunch of guys that get along.

[worming]

We at BASS ANGLERS ASSOCIATION have decided to limit our membership at 25 team, easier to find a place to hold events, more room for parking, and a lot easier to make it a family oriented club.

LORENZO ( B.A.A. )