Spring is in the air!!
And hopefully the area that you live in is finally free of snow and frozen lakes!
With the occasional outburst of semi-warm weather we are starting to see some Youth Activity across the country.
First of all, many of you are hard at work with our Reel Kids Casting Competitions.
Please remember to get all of your event summaries and pictures sent to us ASAP.
We need this data to enable us to keep this program going!
Our Student Angler Federation is gaining some momentum with two schools recently signing up and four more in the process of getting their paperwork in.
If you are looking to build membership within your state these school clubs offer access to a large number of students who are eager to go fishing! Remember you are free to engage these clubs as much or as little as your state chooses.
We have also started to receive a slew of questions regarding state qualifiers, when they need to take place and what the age limits are.
We would really like you to try and hold your qualifiers as early as possible with June 15th being the target date of having your qualifiers information ready to go.
If you have to hold your event later than this date please be sure to let me know as we don’t want to leave anyone out.
As far as the cutoff ages are concerned they are the same as last year, August 31st and this will remain the cutoff date until the Federation Presidents vote to change it.
We will be making a site visit to the Pittsburgh Area in a couple of weeks to pin down all the details of the NGJWC but this years event is shaping up to be another great event.
We try to learn a few lessons from each one of these we do and we’re not afraid to try some new wrinkles to make this event as smooth and efficient as possible. This year’s event will be a combination of past successes and some new ideas.
The National Guard Junior World Championship has quickly become the premier Youth fishing event in the country in just three short years. I believe it has done so because of the hard work and dedication of our State Youth Directors and Presidents across the country who work to get their anglers qualified and prepared for the event.
There will be a press release coming out soon on the NGJWC giving some basic information on the event so watch closely for more details!
Until next month, don’t forget to take a kid fishing today!
Mark Gintert
