costa series at cumberland

[Bent Loomis]

I can maybe see giving the kids tournament a break but the pros ? If the pros can't catch the normal legal size limit then they need to up their game. I'm not a tourney guy but the pros need to follow the same rules everybody else does or in my opinion there's more pros on this site that catch legal smallies on a regular basis

[Shellkat]

You can’t have them pros not catching legal fish, I guess they could weigh in bluegills

[Imagoinfishin]

FLW tourney in 2017 followed state regs, 18" minimum on SM. But in 2018 SM limit was changed from 18" to 15". I guess if enough people whine about not cashing a check and a money-making organization threatens not to come back, rules can be bent! Especially when you consider the organization making and enforcing the rules relies on license sales for 50% of its funding annually...you take 180 fisherman, the majority of which are nonresidents, buying an annual fishing license at $55 a pop, that's not a bad haul for a fishing derby! Wish I had that kinda leverage in my little jackpot club . But I guess instead I'll stop b*tchin' and just go fishin'...think I had a t-shirt that said that at one point or another.

[R19]

Especially when you consider the organization making and enforcing the rules relies on license sales for 50% of its funding annually...you take 180 fisherman, the majority of which are nonresidents, buying an annual fishing license at $55 a pop, that's not a bad haul for a fishing derby!

You bring up an angle that I had never thought of so I crunched the numbers on the recent Costa event. Actually they had 191 boats so that is 382 anglers. A quick count on the boater side revealed 9 people from Ky. Going down the list there were a few people from towns in neighboring states that I would say bought a KY fishing license even if they were not in the Costa event. I am going to estimate out of 382 people who fish in the Costa 300 were from far enough away they bought a non resident license. Now technically they could have bought a 7 day non resident for $35. You had an open practice period, off limits period then official practice period. If you pre fished any in the open practice period the 7 day non resident would expire before the event began so for my purposes I will figure them buying the year long non resident because the number who skip the open practice would be way too hard to estimate. This might make my number high but I feel like I was close when I say 300 out of 382 bought non resident license because of this particular event so in the end my estimate should be fairly close. 300 X 55 = a good payday for KDFW $16,500...not bad for saying we will let you weigh in undersize fish.

I don't recall if it was this thread or another thread on another forum I was involved in but someone spoke to Charlie Evans who has deep ties to FLW and he point blank said if the size limit was not reduced to 15" then FLW would have went elsewhere.

[GeoFisher]

You bring up an angle that I had never thought of so I crunched the numbers on the recent Costa event. Actually they had 191 boats so that is 382 anglers. A quick count on the boater side revealed 9 people from Ky. Going down the list there were a few people from towns in neighboring states that I would say bought a KY fishing license even if they were not is the Costa event. I am going to estimate out of 382 people who fish in the Costa 300 were from far enough away they bought a non resident license. Now technically they could have bought a 7 day non resident for $35. You had an open practice period, off limits period then official practice period. If you pre fished any in the open practice period the 7 day non resident would expire before the event began so for my purposes I will figure them buying the year long non resident because the number who skip the open practice would be way too hard to estimate. This might make my number high but I feel like I was close when I say 300 out of 382 bought non resident license because of this particular event so in the end my estimate should be fairly close. 300 X 55 = a good payday for KDFW $16,500...not bad for saying we will let you weigh in undersize fish.

I don't recall if it was this thread or another thread on another forum I was involved in but someone spoke to Charlie Evans who has deep ties to FLW and he point blank said if the size limit was not reduced to 15" then FLW would have went elsewhere.

And that doesn't even consider the costs/day for fishing, eating, bait buying, etc, etc, etc, etc,.

My trips to the lake usually end up being about 100/day and that is modest......It could easily be 200-250 a day.

Now do that math. Say they all came down for 4 days, that is 382 x 4 x 200 for about 300k in spending in 4 days.

It is probably a whole lot more than that....BUT MAN oh MAN.

I agree that lifting the size for tourney that has that type of spending potential is good business.

[Les Young]

You bring up an angle that I had never thought of so I crunched the numbers on the recent Costa event. Actually they had 191 boats so that is 382 anglers. A quick count on the boater side revealed 9 people from Ky. Going down the list there were a few people from towns in neighboring states that I would say bought a KY fishing license even if they were not in the Costa event. I am going to estimate out of 382 people who fish in the Costa 300 were from far enough away they bought a non resident license. Now technically they could have bought a 7 day non resident for $35. You had an open practice period, off limits period then official practice period. If you pre fished any in the open practice period the 7 day non resident would expire before the event began so for my purposes I will figure them buying the year long non resident because the number who skip the open practice would be way too hard to estimate. This might make my number high but I feel like I was close when I say 300 out of 382 bought non resident license because of this particular event so in the end my estimate should be fairly close. 300 X 55 = a good payday for KDFW $16,500...not bad for saying we will let you weigh in undersize fish.

I don't recall if it was this thread or another thread on another forum I was involved in but someone spoke to Charlie Evans who has deep ties to FLW and he point blank said if the size limit was not reduced to 15" then FLW would have went elsewhere.

Gene, it was me that talked to Charlie & he definitely said" if they( Fish & Wildlife) hadn't reduced the size limit we wouldn't have came back" when i told him that there were a lot of fishermen that didn't reduced size limit on smallmouth.

[davidm]

I can maybe see giving the kids tournament a break but the pros ? If the pros can't catch the normal legal size limit then they need to up their game. I'm not a tourney guy but the pros need to follow the same rules everybody else does or in my opinion there's more pros on this site that catch legal smallies on a regular basis

AMEN TO THAT There Pros So Live By The RULES!!!!!!!!!!!

[Les Young]

I can maybe see giving the kids tournament a break but the pros ? If the pros can't catch the normal legal size limit then they need to up their game. I'm not a tourney guy but the pros need to follow the same rules everybody else does or in my opinion there's more pros on this site that catch legal smallies on a regular basis

I don't have a problem with the kids tournaments being 15. I like you personally think the same way you do. If they had to be 18 there would be a huge difference in the results. Now if KDFWR changes size limits to 15 for everybody then we won't have a gripe, but i hope they don't personally & wouldn't bother me if they uped largemouth to 18 too. I also wish all summer time tournaments by law had to have 3 fish limits too.

[rbass57]

I don't have a problem with the kids tournaments being 15. I like you personally think the same way you do. If they had to be 18 there would be a huge difference in the results. Now if KDFWR changes size limits to 15 for everybody then we won't have a gripe, but i hope they don't personally & wouldn't bother me if they uped largemouth to 18 too. I also wish all summer time tournaments by law had to have 3 fish limits too.

i like the idea of 3 fish inthe hot time of year,gona bring that up here on the mighty ohio,will even the playing field a bunch also

[Les Young]

i like the idea of 3 fish inthe hot time of year,gona bring that up here on the mighty ohio,will even the playing field a bunch also

Most gripe about it saying it takes the skill out of it. Big deal how about taking a big part of the mortality out of it. It would break some of their hearts if the average fellow that only got to go once a week got some of their money seeings as how most of the better then average fishermen on cumberland are on the water 3 or 4 times a week. lol