NEW 2011 TOURNAMENT RULES CHANGES

[Blackbird]

I was sorry to see the Turn: board say that It takes ( 8 ) fish to be caught, before they can decide who is in 1 st, 2nd or 3rd place. We are suppose to be letting fish go, so others can have the fun of walleye fishing.

I think we need to make some changes in our club, as it appears we are getting away from trying to put back so others can injoy walleye fishing. I only hope others feel as I do. I also see we now are going to send 4 teams to NTC, and 1 team to AIM. Can we afford this, or are they going to raise the fees again?

See ya at the meeting.

Carl

[obd6]

We appointed a tournament director and tournament board to take care of the tournaments and tournament rules and we abide by their decisions. If you want this to change, make a motion at the next meeting to take these powers away and have the membership vote on the rule changes.
As for the 4 teams to the NTC and one to AIM this was voted on and approved by the board of directors.
The 4th NTC team was not a tournament director’s motion but a board member. It was seconded and passed. The tournaments took in approx. $1,400.00 last year and to cover the 4 NTC and 1 AIM we will need approx. $1,700.00 which is only a $300.00 increase.
We can always make judgement calls after the the big one gets away.
President Darrell Kinkade

[Limit]

Under the terms of the our DNR approved tournament permits, anglers are required to keep fish in an aerated live-well and release all fish after weigh-in. Thus, no tournament day fish are kept and our club members are releasing their fish for others anglers to enjoy. Also, last year our tournaments brought in $2153. Thus, we have more than covered our post-season entry fees of $1400 for 2011! It is safe to say the remaining $753, plus the $300 worth of Cabelas gift cards our NTC anglers will recieve, and what every our AIM anglers recieve will not be spent towards tournaments. So our tournament anglers are releasing fish for others to enjoy and funding other functions of our club! Wow sounds like a good deal to me, but everyone has their own opinions!

Kyle

[jighead-two]

As a non-tournament fishing member I do have a question as to why the amount of fish that can be held until weigh in went from 5 to 8 (am I understanding this right?) From my own experience, the more fish I have in my live well all day, the harder it is on the fish. On more than one occasion while listening to the tournament results, place winners have won with one or two fish (that's all they caught all day) some guys didn't catch a legal fish. I would think 5 fish could be enough to determine the place winners. Not trying to stir things up, but I just don't see the reason behind it.

Thanks
Bill Behrens

[jighead-two]

Phantom (who ever you are) sorry, I didn't see your 8 fish explenation before I posted. Does that mean we were illegal with 5 fish?

BB

[obd6]

Sorry about the error in the amount that the tournaments made last year.
I was just trying to make a point.

[Limit]

To answer jig-head two's question as to why the tournament board voted to increase the number of fish in possession from 6 to 8, there are 3 important reasons why.
1.) First and foremost, we had input from our tournament anglers last year asking for an increase in fish possession during our club tournaments. It all comes down to having FUN, which is why our club members fish our tournaments. In the past, tournament anglers would do one of two things. Some anglers would keep their first legal 5 fish caught and if they caught a bigger fish they could upgrade one fish and have their 6 fish possession and weigh their best 5. Once the sixth fish was kept those anglers were not allowed to fish anymore that day, whether it was at 8:00am or 2:59pm. Does that sound like fun, to be slamming fish and have your day end early? Other anglers would make decisions about which fish to release or keep based on the time of day and/or how big the fish were, and most of the time when you do this you end up not keeping the right fish to make your best weight of the fish caught that day. Some say, "that is part of tournament fishing, having to make the right decisions," but it is not FUN making the wrong decisions. And that is one of the main reasons why we see walleye tournaments changing formats to Catch, Photo, Release instead of live weigh-ins, because anglers want to fish the whole day and weigh the biggest fish they caught that day, not the fish they chose to keep and not release.
2.) Second, we as a tournament board try to run FUN, friendly, and legit tournaments. To be legit we have to have rules to make it fair for every angler. Because the NTC is the major post-season tournament for our highest placing club anlgers, we try to mold our rules around the MWC, who runs the NTC tournament. If you look on the MWC website, click on their 2011 tournament schedule, click on the Red Wing tournament, and click on the Red Wing Tournament Fact Sheet. You will see that the possession for that tournament is 8 fish and weigh your best five, same as our Mississipppi River tournaments! Another advantage of molding our tournament rules around the MWC is having our NTC qualifing anglers accustomed to the rules format, which they will need to know when they fish the NTC.
3.) Third, it is legal. According to our DNR approved permits, we are allowed to keep up to a legal daily limit of fish/angler for that tournament body of water and release those fish after a weigh-in! Thus, for tournaments on the Mississippi River we legally can have our teams possess 12 fish, which some tournament do! So the tournament board thought 8 was a good middle ground between anglers who would prefer to keep a two man limit and those anglers who would prefer only 5 fish.
Like I have told one of our club members, lets try the new rules for a year and see how they work before we spend too much time debating them. At the end of the year the tournament board will meet and discuss whether to alter the rules based on input from our tournament anglers, but lets try them first!

Kyle Colbert, CVWC Tournament Director

[jighead-two]

Oh...Okay

[thalweg87]

First off, I want to make it very clear that my comments are NOT personal attacks against any member(s) of the board. I appreciate the fact that they have stepped up to perform a service for the club. I also recognize that the tournaments provide proceeds back to the club and that to some extent, the tournaments have contributed to increased memebership. However, I believe that there are certain decisions that affect the club as a whole and should be brought to the larger club audience (e.g., changes that affect/potentially affect the conservation aspect of the club, changes that affect the percentage of proceeds that go to the club, etc.). My disagreement is with the decision, not the people making the decision.

I rarely, if ever, fish club tourneys, I can decide for myself if any rules changes make it more fun for me or not and whether or not I want to fish the tourneys. My hope is that the board would consider whether a change made for “fun” is made for the fun of the larger set of tourney participants/club members or for the fun of a few participants. However, I believe that the decision to allow more fish to be retained falls outside of the simple realm of “fun” and is a decision that should be brought in front of the club. There are several studies that show that latent mortality rate is non-zero and increases with the time duration, number of fish and water temperature in which they are held. Although the impression of releasing fish alive after the tournament is a good one, the fact is that not all of those fish will survive. Increasing the number of fish that can be retained, let alone the fact that there is now a June tournament, both contribute to higher mortality rates. This seems to go against the clubs’ goal of conservation.

I believe that the CRR format was developed, at least in large part, to prevent fish mortality due to the stress of holding fish in a live well rather than to make it more fun for the angler. In fact, the following is from the AIM website. Two of the three advantages mention reducing fish kill, only one implies making it more fun for the angler.

“The AIM Catch-Record-Release™ format has three huge advantages for the sport of competitive angling.
• First, AIM tournaments can be scheduled at the best times of the year for catching the most fish at each tournament site. Tournaments have been prohibited in many locations at certain times of the year due to fish kills associated with conventional formats that hold the fish in “live wells”.
• Second, AIM tournaments reward the Pro Anglers that catch the biggest fish – not the anglers that were fortunate enough to catch fish in a certain order, dictated by local slot limits and possession rules. As noted above, the daily weigh limits for AIM tournaments include the SEVEN largest walleyes. This also means that a Pro Angler can come from behind and advance many places; the excitement continues up to the last minute of the last day!
• Third, AIM Pro Anglers can not suffer penalties that are assessed in other formats for fish that are not releasable. With many events being decided by mere ounces, “dead fish” penalties are never a deciding factor in AIM tournaments. “

I believe the increase in the number of fish that can be retained should be voted on at the next club meeting rather than taking the “let’s try it for a year approach”. I also believe that the club should vote on whether there should be explicitly called out conditions where the tourney board must come to the broader club for a vote. We have a similar restriction for the general club board related to a limit on the dollar amount they can commit the club to without going to the club for a vote.

[obd6]

I really hate to take sides on this issue as both sides have good points.
I will bring the matter up at the board meeting on the 7th. I do know that
the tournament board has struck a large nerve on this subject.