Pro Am Day Two ?

[rusty1034]

Howdy All,

Any one know the results or where they are posted ?

The data on the Pro Am website looks like it is all from '07

Thanks- Rusty

[GAMBLER]

Someone will post them later today. It is not over until this afternoon.

[Billy V]

At this point (2:15pm on Sunday) it's looking like Cold Steel is gonna win it unless someone comes in with a killer box.

[rusty1034]

Duh,

For some reason I thought it was a Fri-Sat tournie.

Go Burke, Bliss , A-Tom-ik et. al.

Thanks- Rusty

[traveling man]

I talked to Glen (spoonfed) today and he said he had his 6 fish by 7:00am. It is a shame that they have to kill 20 inch fish. With the water temp in the 50's they should be able to release fish as long as they are not netted. He said he dropped from 2nd but didn't know where he finished.

[3dfx]

Traveling man - I must agree with you on that! Aside from the obvious reasons of conservation and letting those guys swim for another day (an obvious risk to your score in some years due to poor fishing) I would be a bit aggravated if i spent the money to get in, travel, lodginging, food and of course time. To have my fishing overwith an hour after i start due to another rule that has been put in place for what reason? Probably why my friends and i have elected to not fish this event anymore, too many fuzzy gray rules to contend with. as i hung around the weigh- ins to catch up with old friends it is apparent that this specific rule did not go over very well with many. Should probably be revisited? Congrats to all the winners and the participants as well! Good luck next weekend and see ya at the oak. Dave.

[Gill-T]

Since the new no cull rule was designed to save fish during later warm water events, maybe, the Niagara and Orleans should allow culling on the amateur side with the water temps good for releases.

[Time Out]

Keeping the little guys is an obvious concern, but the field was very tight this year and that helped level the playing field. I would like to release these fish on good days,but on the bad ones they go in the cooler during the tourneys anyways. A larger min. size for fish may be the answer if there are that many concerns?. Our team had a great time this year, loved not having to fish for those lakers

Jeff

Cold Water Affair

[3dfx]

Cold water Affair - That is a great idea, a larger minimum length! Like you said, during many of the years especially with niagara you would have no problem keeping those smaller fish. guess nothing is ever perfect. it did sound like most had a great time just were not pleased with having to come in at 7 -8 am. your idea is a good one for sure! Dave.

[A-TOM-MIK]

If the committee is interested in considering future options maybe this would satisfy many of the anglers to counter the situation we ran into this year.

Why not offer:

The option to cull fish between 18 - 24 inches, if you choose to keep the fish you must use it in your limit, (No later culling), cold water/survival rate not being that bad was mentioned. During the event we had about 6 in this range we had to keep, these are not staggering numbers for release considering the total weight take of this Pro/Am (9000 lbs. of fish taken) The Pro/Am Pro side had 54 limit catches and 38 weigh-ins without a limit (46 teams x 2 days). Unlike the communication issue not being over-turned there may be a good number in favor of this to convince the committee?

Which could favor many anglers......

The scuttlebutt around the event seemed to be in favor of raising the size all together to 24". My argument would be on the years that fishing is somewhat tougher we might want to keep these smaller fish, so the option would be nice.

Just a thought, not sure if there would be concerns I didn't think about?

Tom

[Time Out]

I love that idea Tom. We had concerns with dinks next year as there will be a lot less of them with the stockng shortage this year.

Jeff

Cold Water Affair

[Paul Czarnecki]

Great suggestions Tom.

You guys should be on this end of the rules! We try to make rules that are fair to everyone WITHOUT the gray areas that 3DFX mentioned. I'm not sure which areas he thinks are "gray"...perhaps he could explain. We also try to make rules which are conservation oriented and fair to the fishery.

What a LOT of people seem to have forgotten is that, historically, the fishing has been VERY tough in the ProAm. We had several factors contributing to the tremendous fishing this year in Niagara. First, was the drawn out winter and very cold May which kept water temps colder than normal. Second, was the incredible amount of two year old fish that we have---courtesy of the many pen rearing projects. Finally, the Niagara tournament was a week earlier this year than normal. I fished out of Olcott for 13 years before moving my boat to the Oak and can tell you confidently that the last week of May is ALWAYS a good one. Its no surprise that there were 20 limit catches on Saturday in the Pros and 36 on Sunday.

That said, would you guys that are wanting the size limit increased feel the same way if there were NO kings around--only cohos? We had that situation two years ago in Orleans and I've seen it several times in Niagara as well. I can't believe ANYONE wants to revisit the cull rule after the flak we recieved last year on this very Forum about all the dead fish. How easily we forget!

I, too, would have like to have fished longer. I was done with my 12 fish on Saturday at 9:03 and at 9:00 on Sunday. Like you, I wait all year for these tournaments and got to fish only 6 hours out of a 16 hour tournament. Am I disappointed? Hell no! In 22 years of tournament fishing its the FIRST time I limited out on both days of a ProAm. My team and I were elated....and we finished 13th!

The ProAm Committee welcomes any and all suggestions---as always. We want to hear what you have to say. However, ****ing about limiting out "too early" is kinda silly. Let's enjoy the tremendous fishing Lake Ontario is offering us this year and try to remember back a few years when a five fish catch of cohos and two year old kings got you a top ten spot.

Also, keep in mind that next year the calendar will put the tournaments back to the more "traditional" dates. Niagara--the first week of June and Orleans the following week and Oswego the first week of July and Sodus the week after. We should all be well aware of how much difference a couple of days can make when it comes to transition time in Lake O.

See you in Oak Orchard!

Paul

[Fishtails]

There are some great points made here from both sides of the fence. This was a big topic all weekend. I liked the way it made us strategies in a way we normally would not have, even though it backfired on our team on day one. I just hated killing those little fish when I didn't really have to. I appreciate all the effort the committee puts forth, and accept the rules for what they are. Next year will probably be a very different situation.

How many times do we go out and try not to catch fish? Our team tried to keep the little ones off the hook and just couldn't do it....some teams did and that means they did something we didn't. Day one there came a time in the day we wanted dink's and couldn't get one. We need to figure that out and step it up next time. Still...it was interesting being in a situation I'd never encountered before.

Personally...I'm leaning towards liking the 24' limit on kings and keeping the 18" limit on the coho. I'd rater see more empty boxes than full boxes.

There's just no need to kill all these 1 year old fish in the spring....regardless of whether we need them to fill our box or not.

Just my 2 cents.....not ****ing....not even suggesting....just an opinion.

[Paul Czarnecki]

Not that my opinion matters either but I, too, would like to see the size limit raised and I REALLY like Tom's suggestion of expanding the "Buffer" for Captain's discretion. I think it would make things even more interesting as far as a strategy is concerned.

One thing to keep in mind.....the direction the Tournament Rules have gone is toward the simple rather than the complex. If you raise the size limit it will have to be across the Board---for all species. Raising it for kings and not cohos would put a lot of responsibility on the teams, the observers, the pre check people and the tournament official that would have to DQ you for having an undersized king in your cooler when you thought it was a coho.

Let's see how the rest of the tournaments play out this year. You might be pleasantly surprised at how these new rules work out for the Ams---especially if the fishing gets tough. I really don't think you'll see that many limits again in a ProAm though....so I hope you enjoyed it---I know I did!

See you all at Oak Orchard!

Paul

[MyTurn]

I posted this on the Poll thread but maybe it belongs here:

While the fact that there are a ton of 2nd year fish out there (these 18"dinks were pen reared or stocked in 07) bodes well for 09 and 2010, it is abominable that we have to kill so many for the sake of a fishing contest. There was a HUGE consensus among the people I spoke with at the weigh in that this is wrong and something needs to change. The most common thoughts I heard were:

1) Change the min for all fish to 25". All species (including atlantic) would share a common min length.

- OR -

2) Allow culling by releasing a fish by the side of the boat (NOT netting, measuring, and dumping) Once the fish hits the deck it must be kept if it is legal. Releasing by the side of the boat would greatly improve the fish's odds of survivability. I realize that there is a school of thought that all 4 tournaments must have the same rules, and that this option is not a good one for the East end when the fish are deep and the water is warm on top. SOOOO, the way around that is you make this rule optional based on the Tournament committee's discretion at each of the tournaments. At the captain's meeting the committee announces if the "culling" rule is in effect or not.

- OR-

3) Increase the "captain's discretion" buffer from 1/2" to maybe 4 or 5 inches

After thinking about this more I really like #3. As Paul pointed out it would make the Captain's decisions even more interesting and would still work in years when the fishing is tough.

[traveling man]

I think this should be the rule. It would make for some interesting decision making.

2) Allow culling by releasing a fish by the side of the boat (NOT netting, measuring, and dumping) Once the fish hits the deck it must be kept if it is legal. Releasing by the side of the boat would greatly improve the fish's odds of survivability. I realize that there is a school of thought that all 4 tournaments must have the same rules, and that this option is not a good one for the East end when the fish are deep and the water is warm on top. SOOOO, the way around that is you make this rule optional based on the Tournament committee's discretion at each of the tournaments. At the captain's meeting the committee announces if the "culling" rule is in effect or not.

[ray koziatek]

psst (that was the rule last year)GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!! what they are is what they are as long as we all abide we all got the same chance.last year we could drop a fish at the side of the boat .know im kinda new to the L.O. fishing seen but a 3or4 lb fish on 20plus lb tackle ant got to much of a chance to fight as reeljerks video clearly shows if there small you reel em up and skip them along the surface and release them before they know what happened .But im justa plummer.

[MyTurn]

psst (that was the rule last year)GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!! .

Actually it wasn't. There was no option for the committee to allow culling on a tournament by tournament basis.

[CBish]

Just an observation to put things into perspective, lest we think we are so efficient a fish catching community that we may hurt the ecosystem.

1-- A pro/am puts as much pressure on a port as any other single event

2-- 46 pro boats fished this year

3-- If each limited that would be 24x46=1104 fish killed (max poss.)

4--Approx 2.6 mil fish stocked each year with a 4 year cycle puts 10+ mil in lake (excludes CN stocking, Atlantics, browns & lakers, attrition not accounted for)

5--The pros in the pro am could kill .000105 of the total fish in the lake or .01%

6-- If the tourney paid $10,000 and you only had to pay .01% in taxes your total tax bill would be $1.00

7--The tourney (s) have little impact on fish mortality, truth be told no matter how efficient a fish killer we think we can be, we have little impact on fish mortality compared to other factors such as temp shock, bigger fish, a flock of cormorants and sea lampreys.

The problem is not so much the environmental impact of killing the small fish as it is not catching them and catching larger ones instead. That I can't help you with as my boat has been under small fish attack for the last 3 weeks.

Good luck at the OAK!

CC

[ray koziatek]

opps sorry i only fished the sodus where no net boatside culling was approved so i (assumed) all the tournements were that way...i told ya im justa plummer

[dp]

This was my first Pro-Am. I fished with an experienced team in the Am division. The experience was two-fold consisting of excitement and enjoyment as well as disappointment and discouragement. Having fished the LOC derby the last ten years or so and many bass tournaments, I was eager to fish the Pro-Am. But on Sunday as we placed our sixth fish in the box after 1/2 hour of fishing, my enthusiasm was gone. I felt as though our team did not have the opportunity to do our best due to the rules. At the weigh-in, I heard many of the other teams were not satisfied with the rules and it seemed that they were not given the chance to fish to the best of their ability either.

Of course you can not satisfy everyone all the time with the rules, but the teams should be allowed to perform their best on game day.

Other than being disappointed by having to keep our small fish, I had excellent time and enjoyed fishing with my friends.

[MyTurn]

CBish: One thing your analysis leaves out is the mortality rate from stocking to maturity. I don't know what it is but believe that it is huge (i. e. a very small percent of stocklings get to maturity, or even teenager status).

Dp: everyone had the opportunity to fish to the best of their ability within the structure of the rules. Apparently some did a better job than others at targeting bigger fish and keeping the dinks off. I am sure that some of this was just the luck of the draw.

Hopefully the experience of this tournament will help to evolve and improve the rules as is being discussed on this and other threads.

All in all, too many fish is a good problem to have!

[CBish]

CBish: One thing your analysis leaves out is the mortality rate from stocking to maturity. I don't know what it is but believe that it is huge (i. e. a very small percent of stocklings get to maturity, or even teenager status).

Acknowledged!

CC

[UpGrady]

Alright, I've allowed myself to dragged into this one now as well... I did not fish the pro-am this year, but have fished it sporadically with various captains over the past 20 years. I can appreciate the fact that the fishing was so good this year that most were boxed out far earlier than they would like to be and the fact that they were generally smaller fish than normal was disappointing, but this is a marathon and not a sprint. If you've actually fished these pro-ams over a number of years, you would realize that the number of fish caught this year is a huge anomoly and should be taken as a mere blip on the overall radar screen. We are fisherman and we should enjoy the excellent fishery that existed for the weekend and take it as you go because , these same fisherman might very well be scratching themselves to box 8 small fish in a entire day this weekend.

Not to bring politics into this but the same goes for our wonderful ex presidential wannabe turned environmentalist guru who wants to take 50 years of worth of climotological data and form a judgment on the previous billions of years and the billions of years to come. Don't get caught up in the hoopla of the moment and foresake the real data and details of the reality.

Let's keep it in perspective... I hate killing small fish as well, but that's what the fishery gave most everyone this year. A few managed to find the secrets to larger fish and should be applauded for a job well done...

And my two cents, a unified tourney structure across all ports with the same rules is the way to go... creates less confusion for first timers and less to remember for seasoned vets...

[Fishtails]

Bravo Hans.....I wish I could have worded it so well!! Yes....very discouraging to put out the time, money & effort for many teams to only get such a short amount of fishing time in. That being said, we all are well aware of this years shortage on stocked kings. It's very unlikely we will experience a similar situation next year. It happened....lets not overreact and see how it plays out for the remainder of the season. Things can't always be perfect every time out for every team.

Maybe we should just revisit this discussion after the Wayne Pro Am ?