I had hoped for more than the 226 entries for bass fishing with the llinois High School Association for the 2010 championship.
It was a beautiful beginning to the world’s first for a statewide high school bass fishing championship back in May on Carlyle Lake.
I hoped it would explode this year.
But there is great news mixed in with the disappointment in the 226 entries signed up by the Nov. 1 deadline.
First the great news. That 226 is up from the 199 entered officially for the inagural season in 2008-09,
And the Chicago entries jumped from six in the first year to 10 for 2010, but only three are from the Chicago Public League: Simeon, Taft and Harlan.
Taft and Simeon entered last year, and Taft qualified for state (shown fishing Carlyle below). Harlan is the new Chicago Public League school this year.
The other seven from Chicago are Catholic schools.
The bad news is that many of us had been expecting (and hoping) entries would push 300 or more, or be close to half of the IHSA schools.
That 226 number could still jump around some. It is possible to sign up late with a penalty charge, and some schools signed up now may not field teams.
And, bottom line, it is encouraging (at least to me) that about 40 percent of the schools are from the Chicago area, about 90 of them fall within what we consider the coverage area for the Sun-Times..
This is more than a sport for Downstaters.
The list of school entries is at http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bsf/2009-10/1entry.htm
For general information on IHSA bass fishing, go to http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bsf/index.htm
