After only fishing in the midwest now for a number of years, where you usually fish out wide but by yourself (i.e only boat on the ocean) I became involved in a small fishing comp held at the local town every year and anticipate its arival like it was the olympics.  I began to remember how much fun it was being involved in a club and it reminded me of the variety of metro based fishing clubs (NOR) we were involved in over the years and the crazy antics, characters and comps/missions.

The mandurah fishing comp was always a highlight as before seabreeze/willy weather you would only rely on the next club member calling you going.... 'yeah shit yeah looks ok for the event, she'll be right......what do you reckon but?' these phone calls would go on amongst the club for the few days before towing the rigs down to mandurah cause no one really had any bloody idea what the weather was going to do in anycase.

Then all the boats in the club would meet up at the ground set aside by the comp and before long there were guys from all clubs around swapping yarns and dishing out well deserved one liners. Im pretty sure the only tactics mentioned back then were to do with survival and ensuring the boat didnt roll over due to bolting the mandatary 5 alveys and 80kg of lead to the side of the boat.... The funniest was when the horn went in the morning on the start line, as none of us had any bloody idea of where to go (no gps)..(idea), however.... stuff it... everyone went hammer down for a 10 minute game of 'my boats the fastest and I have medicare'... after which we would all get on the radio and work out which boat was which amongst the amada of other chiropractic funders......

So much bloody fun.

Are clubs still a major part of fishing life, or has gps/technology made us competitive lone wolves for the most part?