Mansfield Bass Fishing Team

Make a gift during ALL IN to support the Mansfield Bass Fishing Team

In the modern sport of tournament Bass fishing, to even compete at the collegiate level it takes a great deal of funding and travel expenses. First of all, there is only one division in college bass fishing, we are a division one team. The average tournament is a week long ordeal, made up of days of travel, practice, and three days of actual competition.

For a recent example, following the first week of classes this past August, freshman Myken Barnes, and Senior Beaux Rohrbaugh both of the Mansfield Fisheries Biology department traveled to the St. Lawrence river in Upstate NY. The tournament entry and travel expenses came out of these students' pockets as they claimed 2nd place, qualifying themselves for the 2025 Major League Fishing collegiate National Championship (April 9-11th) on Wheeler lake in Alabama.

Overall, in order for our smaller state school to compete with every other university in the country with a bass team, we could use all the help we can get to continue to hang with schools fully funding every aspect of these tournaments and offering full scholarships to recruit individuals to their team.

Everyone is already aware how expensive the price of gas is these days, towing these large boats halfway across the country takes a lot of fuel. Then add the consumption of on average 30 gallons of high octane boat gas on a daily basis, for six days straight. Finally, the team must have a place to sleep and charge the boat electronics each night, resulting in costly Airbnb rentals or hotels for a week at at time. These anglers require a great deal of new equipment prior to each tournament event, such as lures, line, rods and reels.