About Schoolie
The Cheeky Schoolie Tournament is all about Conservation. The 14th Annual Cheeky Schoolie Tournament presented by Simms had over 500 anglers convene on Cape Cod for the world’s largest fly fishing tournament. The Schoolie Tournament is unique not only for its size, but for the community atmosphere and camaraderie it generates. To see anglers and conservationists from all over the country convene, and celebrate striped bass and the community they support, is a truly heart warming spectacle.
Even with striped bass harder to find than in some past years, we had teams put up some impressive stats! Our winning team, Bass O’ Matics (Robert Brothers & Dave Nichols), put up 125.25 inches between 4 fish, beating the competition by nearly 14 inches! Robert and Dave took home a mountain of gear, provided by our great Tournament Sponsors, and of course, the legendary Schoolie Blazers.
The event raised $34,680 for Stripers Forever, KeepFishWet and the American Saltwater Guides Association, three unique and differentiated organizations focused on striped bass conservation. We couldn’t have done it without you, all our wonderful participants and sponsors. The Schoolie Tournament to date, with the support of all of our participants and sponsors, has raised over $179,000 for striped bass conservation!
The Science
Our contribution to Catch and Release science was on display throughout the tournament as Dr. Andy Danychuk's lab led by Olivia Dinkelacker with UMass Amherst continued to utilize the event the event to collect data on how striped bass respond to catch and release. Although we saw large fish, the younger age classes were lacking. This is a systemic problem and one that we have figure out if we want to have this fish around at all in the future.
Striped Bass Conservation
Every year the Cheeky Schoolie Tournament, with the help of participants and great sponsors gives away all the proceeds to striped bass conservation. In the past 5 years alone we have raised over $150k for striped bass conservation.
In 2023 with our sponsors, partners and participants we were able to raise almost $31k towards striped bass conservation.
At the 2024 Tournament, Fly Fisherman Magazine’s Ross Purnell and Simms John Frazier commemorated the event by giving out the Conservationist of the year award to Peter Jenkins of American Saltwater Guides Association, donating an additional $10,000 to the cause.
With that $10,000 and the $37, 540 raised by the tournament, we donated a whopping $47,540 to our partners ASGA, Stripers Forever, and Keep Fish Wet.