PONCA CITY, Okla. (Dec. 15, 2014) – The Future Fisherman Foundation (F3) announces a new program called SUPERFISH that is designed to bring a four-week fishing curriculum into junior high schools and their physical education classes.

SUPERFISH will get its start as a 10-school pilot project, thanks to the BoatU.S. Foundation who is providing initial grant funding to F3 to help schools offset the cost of participation. After the pilot phase, the program will be refined to a final format and then made available to all interested junior highs.

“We have been working on the pieces of this program for a long time, but we now have it ready to go,” said F3 Executive Director Mark Gintert. “We built a program that is aligned to National Standards for Physical Education and condensed it into a four week module for the classroom. Our intent is to teach the fundamentals of fishing, as well as aquatic education and environment stewardship, to our target group of 6th, 7th and 8th graders, and then create a system of multiple fishing opportunities for them.

“We realize that at the end of the class not every student is going to want to continue on with fishing, but for those who do we have a format that leads them into a school fishing club where they can get those additional opportunities that they may otherwise miss out on. The program works well whether fishing from the bank or boats, and for all venues and species of fish. We just want kids to get outside and to the water’s edge where they can learn a host of lessons that can’t be experienced in a gym,” Gintert explained.

Gintert further explained that key partners have helped F3 bring the school fishing program to fruition, such as the BoatU.S. Foundation, and also Zebco and The Bass Federation.

Once the pilot program is completed, SUPERFISH will be made available to schools in a format that will allow them to bring it in at a low and manageable cost instead of having to constantly seek grants for funding.

“We have a unique fundraising feature built into the program that eliminates about 85 percent of the fishing program’s cost if a school is willing to do a little work,” Gintert added. “We’ve made SUPERFISH an exciting program for the kids and something that’s easy for schools to take and run with.”

Junior high schools interested in being one of the 10 schools involved in the pilot or wanting more information on SUPERFISH can contact Gintert at mark@futurefisherman.org or by visiting www.futurefisherman.org.

About the Future Fisherman Foundation

Established in 1986, the Future Fisherman Foundation (F3) unites the sportfishing industry and a nationwide network of state outdoor educators, national conservation groups, youth organizations and other educators dedicated to introducing America’s youth to angling, conservation and the outdoors lifestyle. F3 operates under The Bass Federation (TBF) umbrella of companies and is the official education arm of TBF. F3 is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

Winning an event like the Bobby Lane Cup once is hard enough but to repeat the feat in back to back years is even tougher!  But that is exactly what Hunter Gadd and his partner Jackson Williams did as they brought a 6 fish limit of 19lbs 1oz to the Camp Mack scales to win the 4^th annual Bobby Lane Cup on Kissimmee Lake in central Florida. Last year Gadd teamed with Ryan Thomas to win the event. This year Williams joined him in the boat but the result was the same for Gadd, another victory to add to his impressive resume’.

Just 5 ounces behind them with 18lbs 12oz the team of Harry Linsinbigler & Jason Wladyka from Strawberry Crest High School secured the runner-up spot in the event that drew anglers from across the state of Florida and a strong contingent from Central Kentucky who escaped the cold for a few days to enjoy the terrific fishing in the Kissimmee chain of lakes.

Finishing in 3rd Place was Forest High School’s Beau Clymer & Kyle Tomlinson 16lbs 15oz. They narrowly edged out the 4th place finishers from Lake Wales H.S. Steven Coleman JR & Riley Williams 16lbs 2oz. rounding out the top 5 was the team from Ft. Myers High School Travis Conrad & Ryan Burns 15lbs 12oz.

This event features the great combination of the Lane family and a host of volunteers as well as the team from Bartow High School who have worked diligently to build High School Fishing in the state of Florida. It also serves as a great warm up for the upcoming Florida SAF High School State Championship coming up on February 28^th at Big Toho marina which is also on the same Kissimmee chain of lakes.

November  15, 2014

 Twelve schools fished in the second tournament in a series for the inaugural year of the conference.  Forty-two boat teams battled through windy forty degree temperatures to claim be number one.  Fighting through a dramatic change of weather twenty teams weighed in fish.  Despite boat problems which limited their time to fish, Michael Mahony and Braxton Benoit (boat captain Ken Mahony) of College Park won with four bass weighing 10.5 pounds.  HHFC continues to grow with additional high schools from Willis, Magnolia, Cy-Woods, Hargrave, Shepherd, and Huffman.   In their first tournament at Lake Conroe 33 boats from six different schools represent the field.  Chris Talley and Stephen Davis of Splendora brought the first place trophy home with an astonishing 19.5 pounds.  Chris Tally also landed the big bass of the day with 6.98 lbs.  Following up in second place from The Woodlands High School Grant Davis and Connor Whisenant brought in five fish weighing 13.85 pounds.  Find official results or to join check out their website @hhfconference.org.

HHFC Schedule