New Fall Tournament Idea....opinions??

[Fishtails]

I am kicking around the idea of starting a whole new style of tournament, and I would like some feedback and suggestions.

I have had this in my mind for a couple years, so I figured I'd throw it out there.

The General Idea....

My thought is to have a 70 hour salmon only shootout from 12:01am Friday August 31st until 10pm Sunday Sept 2nd, with awards happening sometime Monday late morning (labor day), but winners need not be present at award ceremony.

You can fish any hours within the 70 hour time frame and from any port on lake Ontario, but the official Weigh in station would probably be in the Mexico Bay area. I don't think I would consider multiple weigh in stations...it would need to be one location and I have it in mind.

I am thinking this would be a team boat tournament with one paid entry per boat, but with only one person needed to make up a team.

Winners would be determined by the overall weight of their heaviest 2 or 3 fish....not sure yet. What are your thoughts?

Each team would only qualify for one placement, but can continue to weigh fish throughout the 70 hours during the designated weigh station times, with your top two or three counting as your final team weight. You can continue to upgrade your fish right through the 69th hour.

Fish under 20 lbs will not be accepted at weigh in....maybe it should be heavier?

The weigh in station would be open for approx 10 hours continuously each of the 3 days. The leader board would be updated on the website each hour or so.

If this were to be put together, what would you like to see the entry fee placed at? The more we would collect, the higher the payouts. I would think $100 would be the minimum.

There are a lot more details, but I guess as a general starting point for your ideas this should do.

This could be a lot of fun with some big payouts. It's a holiday weekend and the final weekend of the fall loc, so there will be a ton of boats out fishing.

I would be willing to take on the responsibility of putting it together and running the weigh station.

Thoughts ??????

[mrcanam450x]

Not a bad idea I don't think at a pretty reasonable price to enter. I'd partake

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

Rod, don't you participate in the Canadian series? That is the weekend of their final event. I always felt the 2nd weekend in Sept had great potential for an event, great fishing and little effort.

[Fishtails]

If we were to do something like this, either this year or next year, it would probably be a middle of the road entry fee. Say somewhere from $100 to $250. Whatever the majority wants? If it were to low, too many people may enter and that can cause a lot of problems for the staff running this type of tournament. Much more than 100 or so teams could get a little nutty.

I figure we have plenty of high stakes tournaments for the serious anglers on lake ontario. It would be nice to have something that is a little more laid back and fun, but still has that tournament atmosphere that the loc seems to lack (at least for me)

To keep it interesting and minimize the effects of cheating, i thought we could consider a lottery style tournament. In other words, if there are 100 teams, perhaps the final top 25 teams would be entered in the lottery drawing. The first place team would be entered in the lottery say 50 times. The second place 48 times, third 46 times...

The winners (top 10?) would then be decided by the lottery drawing at the awards. Under this format, You could be 25th, and win the grand prize....but the team finishing in first during the tournament would have the best odds of winning the biggest check. We could have another drawing for the lower 2/3 of the field also so that no matter where you finish you have a chance to win cash & merchandise.

It's a pretty different type of format....it may take some time for everyone to digest, and some tweaking. We'll kick it around and see where it goes.

[Fishtails]

Rod, don't you participate in the Canadian series? That is the weekend of their final event. I always felt the 2nd weekend in Sept had great potential for an event, great fishing and little effort.

The dates could certainly be negotiable. I may or may not fish the last KOTL event....I havn't yet decided. Just thought there are already a lot of people fishing that weekend ???

[Fishtails]

There have been some good ideas pm'd to me....a lot to think about ! I may like the idea of having a smaller guaranteed payout to the top 10 or 20 but having everyone qualify for the grand prizes via lottery drawing under the same premise. One thought was to have everyone entered in the tournament qualify for the grand prize. Based on a 100 team field, first place team would be entered in the lottery 100 times....down to the 100th , or last place team, being entered once. That way everyone would have hope....even the last place team.

Under a normal tournament structure, it makes no difference if you finish 30th, 60th or last. You either make the money field or you don't. Under this structure, every place you can move up will matter and it will keep you fishing hard right to the last hour. Every place you can move up will mean an extra entry in the lottery for the grand prizes.

I have some people to talk with over the next month, so I will update this by mid summer. If I can pull this together at all, It's probably looking like a 2013 event, but I guess ya never know?

[poverty stricken II]

You could structure it like nascar with chase style format with Friday and saturday setting up 1-12 and everyone else fighting for 13th. Points reset for sunday 12 lb/point lead given to the top qualifier and 0 for 12 th spot. Don't think resetting the field would work with 100 entries and giving the 1st place 100 point lead would work. The remaining reset to 0 and they be fighting for 13th to 20th. That way you would still attract people who can not fish everyday and keep someone into the running for some money if they have a bad day or boat issues. i would suggest running a 3 man limit heaviest box with a smaller prize for heaviest fish. Anyone can catch one big fish, but you need to be on your game to put 12 big ones in the cooler for 3 days to win. Personally I say 1-2 man limit because I hate keeping them, ha ha ha. With a $100-$200 entry fee would be well worth the money.

If the fall LOC is running you could make it lake wide and use the LOC weigh stations as verifications for total weight. Have an email set up and people can take a picture of the sheet verifying weight by the weigh station and send it in daily.

Just my 2 cents

[traveling man]

i think the winner should be the winner . if your going to have a lottery, put up 500.00 or whatever amount you want and if they weigh at least 3 fish in, you get a lottery ticket. then draw from them. that gives people an insentive to weigh in fish and gets them to the weigh station. some guys would weigh fish if they dont think they are "in the money".

[Fishtails]

All good points....and many have come in via pm too so please keep them rolling in over the next month or two.

This will in all likelihood happen at some point either this year or next, once enough input and suggestions have been gathered and a final format is developed. It's more important to get it right than to do it fast, so next year is most likely.

Keep in mind that the whole point is to hopefully develop a tournament for the 99% who don't feel they have much chance of winning a tournament within a typical structured tournament format There are plenty of those tournaments for the "big guns" on Lake Ontario. I am fortunate to have fished and placed in them all. The LOC is a big fish derby, and most of us feel that while it's fun, it's as much luck as it is anything else. The smaller challenges are great, but again we see many of the same names grace the leader boards. All of these tournament formats are great and fill a need.

So the goal here is not necessarily to build another event to target the usual participants, but to get the people involved that might only fish the LOC every year, or don't fish tournaments or derbies at all.

Some of the general Goals to keep in mind:

Keep the focus about fun, more so than competitive.

Keep all participants interested until the final hours.

Have all participants feel as though they can win.

Promote the spirit of comradery and friendship.

Maintain a "tournament" atmosphere, not a derby.

Deter cheating by possibly minimizing it's effects.

Keep it somewhat simple, without observers, etc.

Keep the focus about fun, more so than competitive (worth saying twice )

Make it family & kid friendly.

Encourage solo fishermen to participate

This is definitely an event where we want to think outside the box and come up with a totally new and unique format, or it probably wouldn't be worth doing.

Lets have some fun with this....the regular guy's tournament

[Fishfull Thinking]

Rod, I like all the aspects of this format. In light of the unfavorable changes in the Pro-Not Ams, this would be an event we would enter.

Bill

[ifishy]

have the first place team get the grand prize and the rest of the prizes through the lottery as described by fishtails having a guarenteed first place for the highest weight keeps a tourny feel to it in my mind