Why did you decide to run for president?
Everything I’ve ever done, from racing motorcycles to bowling, I didn’t feel comfortable belonging to an organization if I didn’t help or if I didn’t know what was going on. The only way to really know what is going on in an organization is to be involved. With most organizations, only a small number of people really get involved, so it wasn’t much of a problem for me to move up in anything I did. Some people belong and just want to fish, but just don’t seem to find the time to help with fundraising or anything like that. But I think it’s really important.

How does someone go about becoming a Federation official? Did you actively seek office?
People who want to get involved should attend a region meeting. All you really need is time and interest to become a region officer.

Since 1994, what accomplishments are you most proud of?
The one accomplishment I’m most proud of is our work with the Corps of Engineers on Buggs Island Lake. We helped construct the weigh-in facility at North Bend Park, completed in 1996.

What have been the most difficult aspects of being President?
Trying to get a youth coordinator in every region. In particular, it was tough to find a state level coordinator who would get youth activities in every region. We were extremely lucky to find John Britton. As far as I’m concerned, in his two years in office, it seems he’s accomplished more with youth than I have with the whole Federation.

What can you tell us about ESPN’s plans for the Federation?
When ESPN purchased BASS, they knew that the Federation was affiliated, but it took them almost a year to get started thinking about us. Unfortunately, that started a lot of rumors because we didn’t know where we stood. We’ve had three meetings now and the discussions have been very positive and productive. Both sides have learned things and now we’re working together.

For several years, we’ve conducted the boat raffle. It seems to have stagnated. What should be done to revitalize the raffle sales?
The raffle is our biggest fundraiser, and it always has been. Ticket sales have been declining for the last five years, just slightly each year. Even the ticket sales at Bassarama are down except for a slight bump upwards this year. All I can do is to tell the directors to ask these guys to please push and sell these tickets. I know selling tickets year after year, you can get a little tired of it. It’s difficult to hit up the same people over and over again. We have some states that require every member to buy a book of tickets, or you don’t fish the next qualifying tournament. I don’t really want to do that. But if every member bought or sold just one book, we would have the largest raffle that we’ve ever had. Every club gets fifty cents a ticket for each ticket they sell. They use that money to send their teams to the Mr. BASS tournament and the Chapter Teams tournament.

Our bodies of water are becoming increasingly crowded, and boats are getting faster. What would you think about requiring Federation members to take a boating safety class?
I wouldn’t be against that. It really isn’t anything difficult other than a couple of hours of your time. I would be for that if it was brought up. I’m not sure that I would bring it up myself.

What would you think about the regions having a class once a year on first aid or CPR?
Gosh, I don’t have an answer to that. My honest thought is that nobody will attend, nobody will take the time to do that, just like they don’t take the time to do anything else.

It seems that on our limited number of waters, we have a lot of conflicts within our organization in terms of the number of tournaments scheduled. For example, particularly in the springtime, there may be 3 or 4 region tournaments on the same day. Is there anything we can do internally to minimize these conflicts?
I’m not going to take any steps to stop that unless something forces us to do it. I’m not a believer in mandating things like that. I’m a believer in having the regions take care of their own business and working with each other.

What do you see as the pressing conservation issues for the Federation?
I’m real glad to say we don’t have the big problem other states have with the Largemouth Bass Virus. The Game Department has been studying that for a couple of years and we’re safe so far. In other states, it’s just killing them. We work well with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. For the last two years, they’ve been giving the state Federation, and the regions too, forms to record how many fish they caught, how big they were, how many died, whether any of them have any noticeable sores. We send the forms back to them and they use them in their studies.

There has been a lot written about the James and the Chickahominy and the troubles of that river system. Would you support a temporary moratorium on scheduling tournaments on those rivers to try and help them rebound?
Yes, and we had a couple of members from DGIF attend our board meeting and we discussed that, and the board was in favor of doing that if it was necessary.

Will that be brought up for a vote?
No, as far as we’re concerned, that’s the game department’s choice, to decide whether that needs to be done. That recommendation may never come, but they’ve asked the question. They asked that if they determined that fishing pressure was part of the problem, would we be willing to do that, and we are.

Is conservation a priority for you?
I am really proud of our work with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. As far as I know, they come to us on everything that involves bass fishing. Last year in the summer, when they finally realized there are problems with the James and the Chick, I was invited as a guest speaker at a meeting up around Staunton. I had no idea until I got there, that I was the only one they had invited to speak. They wanted to know how we felt, if we had any ideas, any thoughts as to what the problem might be. That’s when they let me know they were going to do an actual study, they were going to shock fish up, study them for diseases. Whatever they could do to find out why the fishing had slowed down so much. I’m proud that they come to us and we have a good working relationship with each other. Please put a plug in there for them, because they sure deserve it.

There seem to be a lot of Federation members who just want to show up and fish, and not give anything back. How can we get more people involved?
From what I’ve found out in my tenure as President, and from meeting with the other state Federation Presidents twice a year, that’s a problem everywhere.

But don’t you think we need to distinguish our organization? Should there be some sort of incentive to encourage members to get involved?
The biggest problem is that this is a volunteer organization. We mandate very few things. If we mandated everything, it wouldn’t work. Most members would just quit. Our strategy has to be just to continually push, to mention ideas to region directors, and hope they pass it along to the club presidents. We have a big turnover in membership, more than you might think. The area I live in, for example, there’s a lot of transferring; people in the Navy get transferred every three years.

If the average Federation member has an issue they want heard, what do they have to do to present that before the board?
They should take it to their club president, and he’ll bring it up with the region director, and the region director will bring it to the board meeting. As far as types of issues, I’ll listen to anything. The only thing that I insist on not getting involved in is everyday, routine region business. Regions do much better taking care of themselves than I could.

You obviously spend a lot of time working for the Federation, and it would seem to many people that you get very little back for it. What do you get back?
Just the satisfaction. I enjoy doing it, that’s the bottom line. When the day comes that I don’t enjoy this any more, I will quit.

What are your long and short term plans for your role in the Federation?
As a matter of fact, this just came up last week at the Federation National Championship in talks with the five divisional reps and Al Smith. Al thinks that we’re going to get busier. ESPN is going to get more involved in the Federation, and they think the time is coming that we will get so busy that we can’t serve as both divisional reps and state Federation president at the same time. I guess that’s a choice I’ll have to make, but I’m still going to do both jobs until that time comes. Right now, I’m perfectly happy being the president, as long as the Federation is happy with me.

Any other problems or controversies you want to address?
I want to see every region have the proper equipment at a weigh-in facility including tanks, aerated tanks, with oxygen or with aeration. I know that Region 2, Region 4 and Region 5 don’t have them. And we need to find out if there are others as well.

What are your goals for the Federation? Are there ideas from other states that you’d like to implement in our organization?
Basically, our Federation is years ahead of a lot of others, as far as what we do. Let me give you a small example. A lot of states don’t have a big fundraiser like we do with the raffle. They don’t have youth programs. I know we are at least five to ten years ahead of a lot of others as far as what we do there. Last week, Al asked for a show of hands how many Federations allotted a thousand dollars to their youth programs, five thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars. And when they got to the ten thousand dollar mark, John Britton and one other man raised their hands, which tells me that all of the other state Federations aren’t doing as much as us. I was kind of proud of that.

What is the future of Tight Lines?
Some of the state presidents are going to do away with their newsletter completely, and they’re going to put the information on their websites. We’re not ready for that because a lot of our members don’t know we have a website. I ’d like to keep Tight Lines, but I’m looking for an editor. Every region, just about every issue, puts in something of interest. It’s the most informative it has ever been.

Copyright 2002 Peter Herbst & Pete Robbins All Rights Reserved
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