Ladies, Let’s Go Fishing University
Ladies fishing tournaments are plentiful and popular and bring everyone into the excitement of tournament fishing. But a Ladies, Let’s Go Fishing University is a bit different.
They provide a unique opportunity for female anglers to team up with professional fishing experts for dedicated fishing instruction. Ladies can experience one-on-one access to award-winning fishing captains in the prime fishing grounds around Florida.
From Betty Bauman, the event founder: “The main events start out with a Friday evening social so we can recognize the sponsors, and the ladies get a chance to meet the others. Saturday mornings are the sit-down classes, which are very heavily laden with conservation because the best time to learn conservation is when an angler is new and impressionable. And then we serve lunch. After lunch we have hands-on fishing techniques, for instance, I show stand up fighting techniques.
We have tables for knot tying, lure usage, lure rigging, other fishing skills, sometimes we have how to handle the dock lines; they’re all a little bit different. And then we have spin-casting, net-casting, fly-casting, boat-handling trailer, backing, and landing, we have them gaff grapefruits. On Sunday we have the optional charter fishing, we give them choices, sometimes it’s the choice of a drift boat, a sport fishing boat or an inshore boat depending on the area that they’re in—different parts of the states have a different kind of fishing.”
Tavernier on Key Largo is the site October 19-21 where more than seven hours of inshore and off‑shore instruction on bait, equipment, technique, timing, and species knowledge will be held on Saturday with all day fishing fun on Sunday. Sign up early because past attendees typically return year after year to relive the fun and excitement.
By Bob Arrington, Southern Boating September 2018