dreamsteelie

Yes, no sep. entry fees is what I was told. Good question. Capt. Pete Vision Quest www.dreamsteelie.com

I talked to Bob Cinelli this AM and he said that the west end Cup will be paying the following pay schedule: MUST fish Niagara and Orleans events. It has zippo to do with east end events this year. It only pertains to the 12 fish division, NOT short box. Teams must enter that division as well as both events to qualify. He did not say that there is a certain minimum required for that pay out? 1st: $ 20,000 2nd: $ 10,000 3rd: $ 5,000 That's a sweet payout. That's all I know as of now and I am just posting this for information only. Any questions should be addressed to Bob or Bill Hilts. Capt. Pete Vision Quest

Great Lakes Tackle will have a card reader there and accepting all major CC's. We will have a variety of tackle, line, divers, apparel etc... to choose from. Including Fish Hawk X-4 units, spare probes and TD's. www.greatlakestackleshop.com Thanks, Great Lakes Tackle Team

Great Lakes Tackle will have a card reader there and accepting all major CC's. We will have a variety of tackle, line, divers, apparel etc... to choose from. Including Fish Hawk X-4 units, spare probes and TD's. www.greatlakestackleshop.com Thanks, Great Lakes Tackle Team

LOTSA President Joe Yeagar just informed us that there were "ONLY" 10 tix left for purchase for this years event. Just an FYI for anyone on the fence. Goodie Bags: We are very pleased to announce that DREAMWEAVER will be providing a coupon for a free regular sized spoon and 8" standard Spinny again. This was a big hit in 2012. In addition, Deeper Divers (now owned by Grayden Outdoors, LLC-manufacturer of Fish Hawk Electronics) will be providing a std. Deeper Diver. To top off the bags, there will be items from A-TOM-MIK, Great Lakes Tackle Shop, GAMMA and..... Combine this with the free drinks and grub, all participants will have cost of admission covered in return for attending the salmon school on Saturday. Regarding the presentation, Tom and I are very excited and believe we will have something presentable and different in terms of presentation style and content. We are still going to talk riggers, divers, water, etc... However, we are going to provide the seminar in a manner that the eager to learn, weekend anglers, tournament anglers, serious recreational or even charter skippers will find useful under the same conditions that Tom and I face each time we frequent a different Port or go fishing after a week or two off the water. (that was a long sentence) Some of these experiences and learned items did not come easy and were not handed to us, it was a sink or swim experience most of the time. I can say that I sank at times early and had my frustrating moments with Lake O and figuring it out but after trial and error, being given some pointers and keeping a determined mindset, I was able to learn, improve and grasp many of the key items needed while fishing Lake O. One of the hardest things to do is take all of it and put it together. We feel this presentation may help. With regard to tourneys... Tom and I really get into these and are very competitive. We have been successful and have fished out of a variety of Ports at a different times of the season with success. Part of the seminar will be focused on tourney tips and tactics with some Q. and A. Participating in these against many seasoned, local Port hero's and full time captains (and tournament SHARKS as I call em), helped the learning curve. LOL, sink or swim again ! We believe that this presentation will definitely help the learning curve for a lot of anglers at a variety of angling levels and there may be a couple tourney tips that you walk away with. (From Tom of course-he owes me 2) Captain Pete Vision Quest

Dan, I was sent the new Beta Fish Hawk this fall to try. It worked very well. However, the deepest we tried it in was in 60 f.o.w. When we had our ball down 58 foot, we would get a reading of 55 foot. 2 foot was blowback and 1 foot was the distance from ball to probe (dropper cable). It seemed accurate. I would only believe this would be worthwhile when fishing very deep. S.M.A. Capt. Pete

"The Pennsyltuckians are gettin all fired up LOL" The Vision Quest Team (weekend warriors, part time Lake O. guys, semi-experienced salmon/trout fishermen and Pennsyltuckians) are in 100%!!!! Nice one Dave... Real Nice Capt. Pete Vision Quest

Kevin, How many teams have put deposits in so far? Capt. Pete

Good posts from all. Shade, thanks for your post, I know we talked in depth about some of this. Captain Rob-to clarify: Your short box or long box points will have "equal value" in the standings and payout. They also go toward the east/west and overall cups. So, you can win a Cup or the Overall Championship with combination of good long or short box placings or if you dominate one or the other. (This should make it even more appealing to teams that traditionally like to catch kings and land BIG fish regulaly) Captain Pete Vision Quest

"I credit Vince, Tom Burke, Chris L., Pete Alex and Bob for each taking a stab at rationalizing this for me. A few of their points made a valid sense. I still feel way "over-par" when thinking in terms of competing fairly, but am willing to play it out and see how I feel after the event. I feel that particular "issue" is going to be "in the jury's hands" until we get a season behind us." Tom, how do you think I feel when I voluntarily fish an event on Lake O or in Oswego? in your home port against your pool of Sharks????? Like your event in August? What are my chances when I toss my walleye rods aside, load the salmon gear, load my salmon BRAIN into my skull, load the 27 on the trailer, drive over 200 miles, practice fish a day and one half (if Oswego isn't boiling with 10 footers) and have to figure it out against you and the other Oswegian Sharks??? Probably not good. However, I do it often or would do it cuz I love the events first and foremost not because I a thinking of a paycheck... Heck, you and many others (pro or am) fish more days in a season that I do/have in several years combined... I still do it because I love to fish the event ! Build a tournament and I will come... LOL Captain Pete Vision Quest Port of Erie, PA (long way from Lake O)

I have participated on the committee involved with suggesting many of the changes placed on the table. I can say, that none of the people involved (including myself) are looking at these changes to better themselves personally or to allow the pro boats to make more money or gain an edge. A lot of people felt that the Pro-Ams needed a face lift and that the Am participation was weakening. A new concept was suggested along with a variety of changes we felt were for the benefit of most if not all. These changes, concepts etc... took some time to fine tune and a lot of people put some time into this newly proposed tournament format. Pro's/cons were laid out by everyone involved in an effort to minimize negativity and to make an event where Pro and am can compete side by side. I myself felt like I was always at a disadvantage (and still do) coming from Lake Erie and traveling to fish against local Pro boats with a day or two of practice and not being tuned it to your lake. So, I can understand the disadvantage feeling. However, I continued to do so because I love to tournament fish and love to fish against the local Hero's and love it even more when we do well against them. I also loved the tourney atmosphere, seeing the guys and the rush of the event. Most of us feel the same. This new format allows a lot of strategy from day to day and a lot of ways to win some $$. It is an exciting concept. It also allows one to compete after a stroke first day, where before, if you stroked day One, your chances of a pay check were pretty dim. This alone will help prevent team info. sharing from one day to the next cuz everyone is still in it on day two with just a smuch money to win. This will also help prevent Am and Pro from sharing like they did in the past. Now everyone is competing against each other. As far as rods go, Brian hit it right on the head. Its not all about how many rods but how effective those rods are. There are days when 15 rods aren't gonna help you much and there's days when 6 rods can get you 40 bites... Whether its 4,5 6,7,8 or 9... It comes down to OUR ability to make em go... The WHI, Tightlines and KOTL events are littered with smaller boats who dont care about whether we have big boats. In fact, the guys with small boats take pleasure in it when they beat the guys with big rigs... I recall The original Prime Time team (Pete Lahosky and the boys) taking it to everyone in a smaller open center console rig. I dont ever recall them loading more than 8 rods on the boat either. They fished what they had and made it work. No argument that big boats have some advantages but that does not make them better fishermen or make fish jump in their coolers ! VP also touched on some good points... Small boats have their advantages also... Like lower fuel bills, more stealth, able to run longer and faster under the right conditions... Its not all bad to have small boats.. I read a lot of LOU and Spoonpuller posts from guys who have no problem getting their fish in boats under 23 feet. Entry fee: everyone will have a say in it. However, I would say based on what we have heard, $650 is the number. Short box or long box... Wow, what a choice we will have to make based on our practice results and thinking about what the other guys strategy will be???. If the majority of the field is looking for a long box (12) and your on a decent big fish bite, you may find yourself competing that day against way fewer teams and way better odds to cash a check.. (strategy) Think about this scenario with 50 teams. If half the fields goal is long box and other half is short box, your fishing against just 25 teams and have pretty good odds of getting a paycheck. Unless some teams can capitalize on both that day? No Comm. As Tom mentioned and I agree. I would like to see it but I don't see that changing. There are ideas being mentioned to address this again, just like in Oswego last year. I think we will see a no comm. calcutta with some added cash in it to promote NO COMM. However, NOT everyone wants no comm. and guys spoke out against closing comm. Maybe some day? I see guys short selling their abilities here and condemming the proposed changes before they try it. I think its worth a try and believe that folks who really enjoy TOURNAMENTS should give the new format a chance first. There is a lot of good input on this thread and its being seen. Capt. Pete Vision Quest Erie, Pennsylvania

Rick, I may have to let her use my user name and password just to catch a little of the girlfriend talk I saw.... Ya know, the 3 year thing.. She's pretty tenacious from what I could tell when I met her.. Not sure I would turn my back on her, esp. if you ha done coming See ya next week. Pete

Rick..... "Pennsyltuckians" Now that was funny.. Nice work on having the Gusto to hit the water in Feb. Sweet catching and KILLING Yup, us Pennsyltuckians do like to take our fish. See ya in a couple weeks. Captain Pete VQ

The proposed changes are for 2012. It may be a bit longer before those changes are unveiled but there are changes in the making. Capt. Pete Vision Quest

Good topic and discussion going here: Here's my take. 1. There are many more articles claiming that eating fish far outweigh the LONG TERM risks. These have all been written by very credible sources. 2. What most don't know is that these warnings of 1 meal per month etc.. are based on 60 years of continual consumption at that rate. 3. Many of the fish tested are in the whole and not just the edible part of the fillet. 4. The State or governmental agencies MUST post warnings (conservatives ones) to Cover Thy Butt.. So they do... 5. It has been reported that consuming a diet beverage is FAR more harmful that eating fish. 6. What you don't know is that beef have very similar test results. The runoffs, atmospheric conditions that deposit toxins in the water also deposit them on the ground where cattle graze. Our sport fishing association in Erie, PA pays to have steelhead and walleye tested on a bi-annual basis. An independent lab does PCB and Mercury testing on them. Now granted, they are from Erie and not Ontario but the results are Minimal=eat as much as you want. The same monthly warnings are issued on both Lakes so one can assume, they "may" have similar toxin levels. I got into this whole thing years ago and did hours of research and read many, many studies. I cross referenced the articles, FDA levels, etc.. with our results as well as others. WHY?? Because I wanted to better educate myself as well as feel better about feeding those same fish to my children (I did not want to be guilty of NUKING them ) End result=we eat lots of fish. There is a lot of viewable data on the right sites. You will see that Ocean fish and shell fish have far more toxins in them than Great Lake fish. So eat fish and have a Captain Pete Vision Quest

Looney, hope this helps.. Yvan is a "little" slow at getting results posted. FALL KOTL 1. Shirley B/Flush 333 points 2. Striker 1 3. Get It Wet 4. Fish Dance 5. Washing Lures 6. Rod Wrestler 7. Lord of The Kings 311 points 8. Vision Quest 9. North Shore Sport Fishing 10. Outta Line 302 points (about 32 pounds seperated 1st from 10th) 12 out of 40 teams boxed their 5 salmon each day. There were between 38 and 40 teams registered. No one knows final number for sure? Yvan left the last several teams off final score due to zippos being entered, so final results sheet does not help. Lakewide King of Lake results (21 teams participated) Pay out for Top 3 only: 1. Shirley B/Flush 2. Lord of The Kings 3. Vision Quest

I like the one day format as is... However, I would like to see a minimum of 3 fish for the Friday event or maybe 5 for weighing to take the Luck side of just one big fish. If agreeable to 3 or 5 fish, I would support the $ 1,000 entry and pay more for Friday. Also,maybe there can be a separate "buy in" for A BIG FISH for the Friday gig to reward those weighing a single BIG fish. Like an additional $100 and pays the top 3 single big fish weighed. This would be totally optional. Captain Pete Vision Quest

Our opinion is to leave as is. If enough want it or are complaining about it, then let them formulate a gentlemans agreement as well. I dont think the tourney committee should make that change. Running far has a huge risk and expense associated with it and has no guarantee of success as we have witnessed over the years. it adds strategy and excitement to an event. I say, the guys or the certain port that wants it should formulate an agreement and leave tournament control out of it. Captain Pete Vision Quest [ Post made via Android ]

Nice work Bill (again), and great report. No BS reports ! Good luck on the East end. V-Man will hav ethe no-comm. agreements in hand again and thx for the support as well. Captain Pete Vision Quest

Nice report Rick. Thanks for taking the time to do it with NO SUGAR coating. Just like it is. Still two left... Go get em down east. I am sure those 500's will have their chance at em again down there. Captain Pete Vision Quest

Great report and good call staying close and grinding on em' Capt. Pete Vision Quest

Ladyblugill, You don't have to agree with anyone here but I am not sure I consider this crying or that we need to get "tougher". I think we all want to be smarter with this thing.. so really what is equitable anymore? it's just a fishing tournament. (Not just a fishing tournament-our team invests about $ 1,700-$2,000 at each event to do these. We kind of take them a bit serious. If it were a much lesser $$ investment and time commitment, we might consider them "just a fishing tournament" do you really think the people from the east end who come to fish the west end tournaments have the same advantage as the locals or visa-versa. (NOPE: it is compounded when the locals can call a well established network and pick the right spots while leaving the harbor.-THUS more of an advantage. I drive from Erie, fish a day or two prior and go and play on the weekend. I DO NOT have the advantage of the locals and have the network to make the call if were on a stroke bite. I pretty much make my bed and sleep in it based on a day or two of prefishing/charters and I don't get out of it because I get "the call".) how about the out of state fisherman who probably in the current times do more to support this fishery and these tournaments then the local residents, myself include. (I am an out of State fisherman and feel we do our share to support the events, both as a competitor as well as a sponsor) i don't fish these things but am tired of hearing all the crying.toughen it up and quit trying to promote your own agenda. (Well, I would say if you look at the guys who are in agreement with this, it's a "pretty tough crowd". Secondly, If we don't "promote" what 50% or more desire, then were idiots and we should live in a dictatorship. Just roll over.....I guess thats why we have more than ONE political party in the U.S. of A.) Shade, Ray and others hit the nail squarely on the head. Captain Pete Vision Quest

Ray, That post was hilarious. I dont think mooning constitutes the form of comm. we are discussing. These are all good comments without hard feelings. We must all understand that this is a "choice" that may not be for everyone altho my personal opinion is that "we" should do well in an event on our own and without outside influence. The Pro-Am may never accept a no comm. rule. We know that but its cool that we as a group can choose to voluntarily do what we feel is right by NOT communicating. Democracy at it's best. The success of many of the guys who signed it speaks for itself. Even if 50% agree and follow thru, we are better that 100% open comm. My personal opinion is that winning or doing well "on our own" is a sweet sense of satisfaction that "no one" can steal or taint by saying "they helped do it for them". But for the guys who want comm. or feel that help is desired or don't care, then so be it. This is about choice. Thats all and this is a peaceful avenue to do it in and we THANK the Pro-AM folks for opening the door for us. Captain Pete Vision Quest

I was asked to post the list of teams that signed the "voluntray" No-Communication agreement for this weekend's Pro Am at Orleans. First, I would like to thank the Pro-Am folks for putting on another very good tournament (again) at Orleans (Niagara also) and to thank Mike Waterhouse for giving the no-com. some air time before and during the meeting. This event, we had 33 out of 56 teams agree. Plus there was one team I could not read the team name signed by John M. Muehl. (Sorry) Captain Vince will be requesting the same no-comm. agreement for the (2) remaining east end events and will seek your support again. Below is a list of teams that signed on. You will also note that many cashed a check this event and did so in Niagara as well. This was one event it may have been nice to have a phone and look for "some help" but the majority chose not to regardless of a spread out bite this weekend. Am Teams: 8 out of 16 TEAMS agreed. Dodger/Outcast Prize Fighter Gill T Hooker Subject To Change Fish Nutz Agitator Catchin Hell Spoonfed/NK Pro Teams: 25 out of 40 TEAMS agreed Hammerhead Free Spirit Team Troutman Vision Quest Thrillseeker Tall Tails Hi Voltage LoneWolf/Flat Out Hot Pursuit Ace Charters Oh Baby Violent Release Billy V Hide Out Maverick Cannonball Runner U-Betcha make The Turn Get Hooked Screamer Top Gun Runnin Rebel Yankee Troller Cold Steel Off Season Thank You Captain Pete Vision Quest

Hi Greg and Ray, Ray, thanks for your thoughts. Greg, I cannot speak for others of defend others who may have did what you mentioned. I personally did not and only offered the option with "hope" that others would jump aboard and support it. Obviously, this horse has been beaten and I do not believe that the Pro-Am Committee will add a non-com. rule and regardless of 58% or 99% participation in the voluntary agreement. They have their reasons to keep it open and we will leave it at that. The why's, what's, etc.. do not matter and it is their call to keep things the way they are. However, they provided a means for us allow on a voluntary basis. That's a choice and may not be for everyone. So be it. However, there has been enough people (Am and Pro) that desire it, so.... Here we go. This agreement will be available at the Orleans Co. Pro-AM event with a slight modification to the start time for closed comm. (Proposed by Capt. Vince and others) I also believe there will be a separate calcutta available for the teams that choose to sign the no comm. agreement. Capt. Pete VisionQuest