CCA and Fish & Game: A Decades-Long Partnership
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TWO INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN toiling in the trenches as advocates for Texas coastal anglers for more than forty years. One of them has been doing it as part of its for-profit business plan. After all, endorsing protection of the very field its customers play on is the definition of “good for business.”
The other has been doing it as a non-profit mission driven by volunteers and funded by seagrass-rooted donations and at least one stroke of fund-raising genius.
As the profit-seeking side of these parallel efforts, Fish & Game recognized early on that a partnership with the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) made perfect sense.
CCA is the vocal, and phyiscal, power plant of coastal preservation in America—from sea to shining sea, with chapters in almost every state that has a saltwater coastline (even Alabama, with that little toe-like appendage dipping into the Gulf between Mississippi and Flordia).
But CCA’s roots, proudly, are right here in Texas. The association was created in 1977 by a group of concerned anglers led by the late Walter Fondren, to take a lead role in what was known at the time as “The Redfish Wars.”
Redfish and speckled trout in those days were being anihilated by ruthless commercial overfishing in Texas Gulf waters. The Gulf Coast Conservation Association, or GCCA, as Fondren’s group called itself, got busy in a hurry. Within four years, commercial gill nets had been outlawed on the Texas Coast, and red drum and speckled trout had both been designated as gamefish.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Gulf Coast Conservation Association grew rapidly from its initial success—adding one strong chapter after another, as it spread out from its charter base in Houston, all down the coast and then inland, to San Antonio, Austin and even the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
This early burst of growth was fueled by a steady ground game of local banquests, raffles and word-of-mouth campaigns.
In 1990, lightning struck in the form of an ambitious idea for a membership and fundraising event—a massive fishing tournament.
The tournament was christened the State of Texas Anglers Rodeo, or STAR. Its concept was so big—Big in two dimensions, Time and Space, stretching from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and encompassing the entire Texas Coast—that the Lone Star State was its only fitting birthplace.
STAR was piloted from the start by Tournament Director Bill Kinney, who proved to be the perfect evangelist not only for this audacious event but for the CCA cause at large. Under Kinney’s dynamic and, some might say, genius-level guidance, STAR quickly became a Texas institution, attracting thousands and before long, tens of thousands, and then scores of thousands of entrants each year.
Not only was the scale of the contest big, its stakes were Texas-size as well. CCA’s expertise in stewardship of coastal species made it possible for STAR to incorporate a unique feature to the tournament: the release of tagged redfish to be caught as tickets to winning new truck and boat/motor/trailer packages. As reports came in year after year of anglers catching one of these tagged reds without being entered in STAR, registration became as much a staple for many anglers as their annual Saltwater Stamp.
Genius.
But that, and many other enticing adult competition features was only half the story.
With an eye toward CCA’s responsibility to the future of the resources under its watch, STAR also implemented youth divisions with scholarships as high as $50,000. With free or nominal entry fees for kids to enter, this one feature probably introduced more young people to the wonders of saltwater fishing than could ever be counted.
In the decades since its founding, CCA dropped the “G” from its name and took on oversight of coastal conservation not only along the entire United States Gulf Coast, but also the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well, with state chapters in eighteen coastal states—and one landlocked one (Tennessee).
In our humble opinion, STAR was the main driver of this growth. Its mass appeal helped make possible all the achievements this now-national conservation giant has racked up in the post Redfish Wars era.
Hurricane Bill (Kinney), a true force of nature then and now—he is still running STAR—grabbed our attention in 1995 and encouraged us to partner up. We jumped at the chance—instantly recognizing the marketing brilliance of the event and the importance of its underlying mission.
So here we are, almost 30 years later, still doing everything within our power to support and promote STAR.
This year, we inaugurated a special E-newsletter, THE STAR REPORT, sent every other week during the tournament, to our 77,000 base of FISH & GAME REPORT subscribers. Chester Moore is editing each issue with articles to help anglers up their game as they compete in STAR—plus news and updates on current standings. If you aren’t signed up yet, go to FishGame.com/newsletter.
Kinney still has a steady hand on the STAR tiller, aided by a dedicated team that includes Peggy McMillan, Ryan Townes, Kevin Hickson, Lucy De Jesus, Lorri Hromas, Alaina Yepez, and the volunteers on the STAR Tournament Committee. These people, the entire CCA staff, its local and national boardmembers and leadership, and the thousands of member volunteers, are doing God’s work every day—literally working to preserve some of the greatest riches ever endowed to humanity.
Fondren and the original Redfish Warriors would be proud.
E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com