Requiem For A Fishing Club

The South Florida Fishing Club meets a couple times a month at Tony Roma's, a restaurant in Sunny Isles Beach noted for their spare ribs. At the last meeting this was the view to my left. About six more members were to my right. Three or four wives had finished eating and gone out of the meeting room for some girl talk around the bar. Nothing like the turn-outs of thirty to forty or more avid anglers that would show up for a meeting when I first joined about 15 years ago.

We had an active junior division and several of the area's top fishing guides were members. I joined because my then new girlfriend Vivette loved fishing, and she had two kids who fished also. I needed a kid friendly club with other women anglers, and the good folks at my local tackle shop, Fred Lou Bait & Tackle, suggested SFFC.

Now all the local neighborhood bait and tackle shops are gone. Between The Sports Authority and then the new Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World they can't compete on prices. The clerks in the mega box stores, the stores themselves, aren't part of any neighborhood. There's no longer a tackle shop within walking or biking distance of most kids where they can get some advice or drool over the latest new reel. No place for adults to drop by on the way home from work just to chat and find out where the fish are

Yeah, the prices are great, but they're doing nothing to cultivate the next generation of customers, the new fishermen. They're doing nothing to bring those folks together with one another. The clubs are dying.