AIM Tournament on Green Bay

[Limit]

Well I fished the AIM Pro Tournament on Green Bay as a coangler, July 1-3. I fished the event for two reasons: 1.) Learn how to fish spinners with crawlers harnesses for suspended fish 2.) See how their new format of CRR works (Catch, Record, Release)! With this new format no fish our kept in the livewell and brought to the weigh-in. After you catch a fish you measure the fish on a standard measuring board, rounding up to the closest quarter inch. After both the pro and the coanlger agree with a length, the pro holds the fish on the measuring board and the coangler takes a picture with a digital camera. The pro supplies his own camera, but is given a blank memory card in the morning. After the picture is taken the fish goes back into the water and the length of the fish is entered on a scorecard. This format allows for many benefits for the anglers. 1.) No fish are killed from being in a livewell all day and bouncing around in rough water 2.) Anglers don't have to worry about deciding which fish to keep or throw back in no-cull events 3.) Anglers don't have to worry about slot restrictions and possesssion limits. At the end of the day the pro picks the 7 longest fish from the scorecard to use toward his weight. The tournament crew converts the length into a weight for each fish on the scorecard via a standard length conversion chart. This is the only downside to this formant, it took the tournament crew about an hour to convert all the fish before we could start the weigh-in. During the weigh-in they use the pictures you took during the day to show off the big fish. After the weigh-in the tournament crew goes through every picture of the fished used towards the anglers weight and verifies the lengths from the pictures taken of the fish on the measuring board.
I was very impressed how well this format worked. On the third day I fished with a pro who had the fish in the boat, unhooked, measured, and picuture taken well under a minute. A major concern I had going into this event, was how could the tournament crew tell two fish apart that were the same length? They are able to tell the fish apart mostly by looking at the tail and fins of the fish. Every fish has different cuts, spilts, and nicks on their tails and fins and they are able to zoom-in on those areas of the fish to tell the fish apart. Overall I was very impressed with this format and it is the future of walleye tournaments. No need to worry about not getting tournament permits during warm months, no-cull events, slot restrictions, possession limits, and the fish live to swim another day!
Also, the fishing was unbelievable! The anlger who won the tournament had over a 25" inch average for all 21 fish he entered for all three days. And I have never seen so many suspended fish on the screen in my life. We should have fished Green Bay during the week we were in Oshkosh for the NTC.

Kyle

[obd6]

Very interesting report . I also agree that the AIM format is much better than
dragging a big Walleye around all day in the live well. I hope we can change
some day. Darrell