I joined a club tonight in southern Illinois. For the past few years i fished a local chapter of a national club and started looking after entry fees went up 3 times in three years ,we also kept losing members. So i go to this meeting tonight, i find out that entry fees are half what i was used to paying,with about triple the number of boaters that are members. I am the youngest member by about 10 years. If anyone here is from the southern illinois area and is looking for an AFFORDABLE

club to fish with,this is the ticket.

Congrats IB, it's always a good feeling when you find a club you want to fish with.

Thanks, I fished with another club for a few seasons, they kept raising tourny fees.We also kept losing members because of it.The last tourny i fished with them we had 4 boats. The new one i joined has an average of 20-25 boats per tourny. This is going to be a tougher group to fish with.

A few of the guys have been fishing the everstart/stren series. Can't wait until march!

I have yet to fish any Georgia lakes, will most likely fish Allatoona this year maybe a few others if time allows. My in-laws live in Marietta,so everytime we go down there we pass over Allatoona and a few other places along the way.

I hear Allatoona has gotten much better the past few years from when I used to teach up there.

The club I fish has also been going thru the slow decline. So this year we changed everything up. We used to pay the entire years entry fee's up front, made for consistant payouts, but was a hard spot especially with the sailors here that new they'd miss at least half the years events. Now we just do $20 at the ramp and an optional $5 big fish pot. We start our season in Nov and we already have six new members this year. It's a small club (16) but it's the only show in town.

Our tourney fees are the same for this new club. Pretty reasonable prices. I'm hoping to do a little fishin in Georgia this spring. Going to try to do a 3-day weekend there,one at Kentucky Lake,and if time allows, A few days at Lake Hamilton in Arkansas. Right now i'm fishin a few buddy tourneys on some hot-water lakes.Winter tourneys out here draw the same amount of boaters as spring and summer. We haven't cashed one check yet this winter. The season isn't over yet.

Good way to look at it. Last year was the first year I didn't win at least one tourn in as long as I can rmember. ( I can't remember those first few years I was doing this stuff. LOL!!!) I had a bunch of 2nd's and 3rd's, but no wins. This year I've had a 2nd and a "no place" and unfortunately I'm going on three months of travel week after next so I'll miss three really good tourns. Oh well, Just keep plugging along I guess.

If you lived mid state I would have turned you onto my club Illini Bass Club

is there a website for it Chris?

http://www.illinibassclub.com/

I think it's in the links section of this site too.