West Boggs Tournament News

A bass fishing club from Martinsville, Indiana held an unregistered fishing contest at West Boggs Lake on Saturday, September 06, 2008. The club, Backyard Bassmasters, held their event on the same days as a legally registered event, which assisted Park Rangers in tracking down at least four of the participants of the Backyard Bassmasters event as they pulled off the water at the ramp. Readers interested in knowing more about the club can find information on their website, which can itself be found in a simple Google search. The website even advertised the West Boggs event, listing the names of members that entered the event.

The club will be given and opportunity to resolve the situation by paying a fee for the required permit, at double the normal rate as per orders of the local Park Board, or face a series of other consequences, including a charge of theft against the organizer and the participants, and/or referral to the Department’s collection legal council for collection as a civil action.

Readers here are encouraged to help spread the word that a ramped up effort for addressing enforcement tournament regulations is in effect at West Boggs, and to avoid being caught up in a problematic legal situation, anglers should make sure they are only entering legal and registered tournaments.

Bravo Mike!

The web site looks good - you would think these guys had their act together and would have applied for permits early in the year . According to their schedule they were suppose to be at KY lake on sep. 6th but the news listing the Patoka event says very clearly at the end the next event on Sep. 6th is at West Boggs . Go figure . Hope they like paying the double fee .

I have a good hunch that I might get blasted for this but try and hear me out and maybe it will make sense. I somewhat sympathise with that group. I realize that rules are rules and if you break them you get what is coming.
With that being said, I have felt like like fee's keep a lot of smaller clubs from having a tournament there. Unless I understand the rules wrong, you have to pay the say fee if you have a 10 boat tourney or a 50 boat tourney. Every year several members of our club beg to get a tournament at Bogg's and every year I have to explain (what I think) are the costs and how we (as a 10-13 boat club) can't afford it.
I understand the need to charge extra and I understand that your facility is underfunded but is there a way you could look into possibly a sliding scale or something that could make it more feasible for a small club to have an event there?
If I have completely missed the boat on your rules, please feel free to explain them but I was under the understanding that it was a flat $100 regardless if it is a 2 boat or 75 boat tourney and then you add in some extra fee's.
Eric H.

Eric, thanks for asking, and I’ll get to your question in a moment. It goes to the very heart of the matter that causes many of these problems and misunderstandings.

But first I want to say that the leadership of the Backyard Bassmasters has been in communication with me and have behaved in a very sportsman-like way. They clearly now understand what they did wrong and they are making the necessary amends to clear all aspects of this matter up. Having dealt with dozens of groups over similar issues in the past, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this group actually “gets it” and will do the right thing. They’ll be welcome to come back to the lake anytime, now that they understand how things have to work.

Back to your specific question. We do have a way to allow small groups to hold tournaments here without the $100 fee. It all has to do with the nature of the event, and the fact that our regulations contain two different categories of events.

Any form of organized, competitive angling activity in which two or more boats are participating is considered here to be a “fishing contest”. All such activities on the lake require a permit. The primary reason for that requirement is the need to keep the fishing pressure on the water within levels that allow a high quality experience for those who participate. We limit the amount of pressure by limiting the number of events taking place on any given day. A fishing contest may have up to 50 boats, but it is a fishing contest if it has 2 boats as well. At time we may allow more than one, if the total number of boats remains below 50, and the first group to register agrees to allow a second group to also register the same day. We never force the first group to do so.

A second definition in our regulations is “tournament”, which designates a fishing contest that involves money. Any event that requires the payment of an entry fee, and/or for which winners are awarded any form of valuable remuneration, in cash, prizes, or other valuable considerations, is consider a tournament here, and must in addition to the need to have the above mentioned fishing contest permit, will be charged a $100 tournament fee.

The bottom line is that if there is in no way any money involved, the event is a fishing contest and need the permit but is not billed for the tournament fee. If money is involved in any manner, the event is a tournament and must have both the permit and pay the tournament fee.

Can’t a club or group just lie and say they are just fishing for fun and handle the money issues off-site? Yes, they might, and we’re sure some do. We’re also aware that there are also side bets going on all the time in competitive fishing. But we do consider the vast majority of the people involved in tournament fishing to be good, ethical sportsmen who will do the right thing when they are given a chance. And when we find them we will use every legal tool in our power to convince them that they should either cowboy up and do the right thing or go someplace else to cheat.

Mike,
I'm glad that the club is doing what is right and taking care of that.

Thank you for a very good explanation into your rules. They are much clearer now.

Now for more questions..
Have you thought about doing your tournaments on a "per boat fee"? That way the bigger the tourney (and more strain on the resource) the more they pay? That might make it possible for smaller clubs to have events there and not have to "fib" about whether or not money is changing hands. Plus, in the long run, the park might actually see more money because the "contests" are free so if a small club could afford to do it legally you might find more of them doing so.
Just my opinions. I do have to admit that I like the way the park seperated the two classifications of tournament.
Thanks,
Eric H.

Eric,

As a matter of principle, we don’t and won’t support any preferential treatment of one group of park patrons over another. Treating small groups differently than larger groups would be giving a preference.

We also do not see a realistic need to alter policy to encourage more tournaments. In reality, we find that nearly all clubs, of all sizes, are limited to holding events on weekends. That is because most of the people who can afford to participate in that rather expensive past time activity can do so because they have a job that provides them to money to play at that level. And that means that they are only available on weekends. And during the period from thaw to freeze, and excluding our closed season from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekends, all our weekend dates are usually filled now. There just is not more capacity except weekdays. I think we could offer a much reduced rate, or even no rate, for tournament permits on weekdays and it would not make any real difference. Most people can’t take off their day job to fish. Those who can, enjoy being out there without the pressure.

I do like that you are think though. That is what we need in the mix. And we have decided to take what I think is a very logical step in that direction. We’ve been doing this whole tournament permit thing here for a decade now, and some of the problems just won’t go away. So, I have decided that there is probably no better source of ideas about how to control problems with tournament events than the people who organize and participate in them. For that reason we have decided to hold a public input session at our 2009 tournament permit drawing that will take place here on October 7th at 9:00 AM. The majority of the clubs and coordinators are there together for the drawing and we want to collect their ideas for how to combat what we are calling “bootleg tournaments”, promotion of exotic species hazards, and other issues. I can’t say that all the ideas gained from those experts will be used, but I feel sure some of them will be.

To give others a chance, I’ll accept suggestions and comments about all things related to our tournament policies by mail, email, and even in these public forums. Your per-boat fee idea will be in the mix. Now maybe some of the other guys here will chime in and share what they know, or even what they think.

Information is coming together that there was actually two unregistered tournaments at West Boggs on September 6th, plus one registered one. We still need a little more information on the second unregistereed one, and we will begin preparing a case for our legal beagles as soon as that comes into our hands. It is taking a little time to review all the security video from that day, buy we should eventually be able to itentify each vehicle that pulled a trailer in to the park that monring. One of those cameras is positioned to record license plates, and one is positioned to record boat IN numbers.

If any of the participants of that group want to avoid any serious fallout they may want to give me a call at 812-295-3421 and we can talk about it. If anyone fished that event and lost money, or if you know of someone else that did, I may be able to produce a cash reward for the missing bits of information we need.

Mike,
Technically, the per boat fee wouldn't be preferential. It is based on actual resource utilization. I would think it would be the same for the everyone since if 5 different clubs have 10 boat tournaments or if one club has a 50 boat tourney the park will make the same money (in theory).
I do understand about overcrowding the water. You do have a pretty full tournament schedule there.
I like that you are asking for opinions. I think that should help with the public. I won't be coming to the meeting because, at the present time, we don't have enough members to cover the permit fee and we aren't going to say we are having a tournament without money so we won't be fishing Bogg's.
Thanks,
Eric H.

Eric, thanks again for being proactive in trying to help us better understand and manage these issue. But I need to explain one more aspect to you.

Keep in mind that, while tournament activity is important to us, and to our revenue generation, it is only one segment of the angling community. Like tournament anglers, most other anglers also have to work though the week and only get to fish weekends. So even though we might find ways to market the weekend dates to tournaments by allowing something like 10 five boat tournament per day, and while that might in fact make us have the full field of 50 tournaments boats every Saturday and Sunday, it would almost certainly drive away a great many recreational anglers in the process. And many of those come in on Friday and camp for two nights, providing a much, much larger total revenue gain than the tournament anglers who typically drive in early in the morning and leave around noon. So from a revenue perspective, more people fishing more tournaments is not necessarily better.

I understand that. It does make sense.
I think that if you were to let a few of the smaller groups in, you might find that some of those members might camp and make a weekend of it. The larger groups are the in and out types. We have a few people in our club that will camp and make a weekend out of it.
Eric H.